


Firelight

by ballvvasher



Series: Son Of Mine [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, BAMF Phasma, Bearded Hux, Child Abuse, Chronic Illness, Chronic Pain, Dark, Dreams and Nightmares, Family Issues, Force Visions, Force-Sensitive Finn, Force-Sensitive Hux, Hux is Not Nice, Implied Mpreg, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Kylo Ren is Not Nice, M/M, Non-Consensual Touching, Not Another Redemption Fic, Panic Attacks, Past Sexual Assault, Post Mpreg, Post-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Rey Skywalker, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Slow Burn, TFA Compliant, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-10
Updated: 2017-02-08
Packaged: 2018-08-20 13:53:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 22
Words: 90,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8251474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ballvvasher/pseuds/ballvvasher
Summary: In this sequel to Sunstroke, we follow the story of a curious young boy born into a galaxy torn apart by an age old war against evil, and his two severely misguided parents whose identities as vanguards of tyranny and the dark side will be tested after their failure of Starkiller Base. The Force grants solace to forgiving and good willed hearts. But Kylo Ren and General Hux—two self-interested, villainous, incorrigible excuses for fathers—just might doom themselves to suffer.Fic contains mentions of past rape/sexual assault, physical and emotional child abuse, and references to mpreg.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Some knowledge of Star Wars Legends is helpful but not required. None of the child abuse is sexual, but some of it is rather horrific emotional and physical abuse so feel free to message me on tumblr (my handle there is the same as mine here) for details if you would like more info about the extent of it. The events of Sunstroke tie into the events of this story so I recommend reading that first. If you’re hesitant to read the first part of this series because of the rape content warning, I’ve added a summary of the assault to the notes of Sunstroke Chapter 2 if you wanna skip Chapter 1.

Failure on such a magnitude was never projected. But he’s failed, immensely, and there is no going back.

The trees tremble under the might of the planet’s inevitable collapse. Hux has to find Kylo Ren soon. It wouldn’t be difficult if it weren’t for the impossible timetable because his marker is finally stationary on Hux’s positioning device, accurate to the meter in the middle of the eastern woods. That damned fool is probably lying face down in the melting snow awaiting the release of death. Not this time. This time they’ll face the same fate.

“Sir, the ship’s ready. Have you located Kylo Ren?” asks JN-3452, the lone trooper he pulled from her post to help him carry whatever’s left of Ren.

“He’s not far.” Hux isn’t looking at the screen, instead relying on intuition. The blood trail dotting the snow is also an indicator of the fallen warrior.

That face has seen better days. _Not by much,_ Hux projects pettily.

It’s the telepathic insult from Hux that rouses Ren from his stupor, rolling over in the blood soaked snow with a strangled groan. The nearby chasm swallows another dozen meters of snowy earth down into its depths. Hux narrows his eyes at the glow of blue plasma from across the chasm, reflecting off the snow to silhouette the slightness of the scavenger girl. She runs in the opposite direction, no longer a threat to Ren’s safety.

Hux and JN-3452 haul Ren to his feet and into the shuttle. They only have a few precious minutes before they’re eaten by the uncontainable cosmic energy beneath their feet.

By some miracle the Stormtrooper pilots them to safety, narrowly escaping certain doom. Hux blinks at Ren, gasping on the ship’s floor, bleached by the blazing sun through the transparisteel. Ren is deserving of his pitiful state.

“Set the course for the Crucival system. We’ll drop you off at our base. The Supreme Leader is grateful for your loyalty, JN-3452, in aiding the safe passage for our fearless warrior,” Hux nods. There’s never a bad time to instill allegiance with his troops.

“Of course, sir. It’s my duty,” she salutes with sincerity.

Hux leaves the trooper to her navigating to tend to Ren. It’s a shame he hadn’t succumbed to his injuries by now, so extensive that they have taken a toll on his mental state. Hopefully Ren can remain alert long enough to program the coordinates for Snoke’s base. One of the many disagreements he’d never dared contend with the Supreme Leader: only Ren knows where to find him.

“He’s dead,” Ren mutters, eyes lolling. _He’s dead. I killed him. I killed him._

“They’re all dead,” Hux concurs. “Hold still. This is going to be unpleasant.”

Shearing Ren’s singed robes off his body, Hux accounts for his multiple burns, both blaster and lightsaber. They need a proper medic but bringing Ren to Snoke takes precedence. Hux reluctantly applies the topical pain killers to his abdomen, chest, shoulders, and that awful face wound. Ren passes out from exhaustion when he starts the fusion treatment, a rudimentary first aid technique Hux is adept in. Ren’s head rolls awkwardly to the side so that his healing wound is all that Hux sees. That will no doubt leave a nasty scar without more advanced healing treatments.

There is some minor scorching on his hands. Probably from that awful remodeled lightsaber of his. Hux takes care of those with the salve although the injury isn’t life-threatening. He wraps his knuckles up, winding the gauze around his limp hand.

His mind unhelpfully recalls the last time Hux patched Ren up after a fight while they were escaping Resistance captivity. Years ago. But as he recalls, Ren managed to win that fight. If having a Resistance fighter save him from his treacherous knight classifies as victory.

That was around the time he’d been promoted General. Truly a memorable occasion worth reminiscing in his time of failure.

Ren’s limp fingertips against his palm threaten unwarranted memories and harrowing feelings to arise. Sensations he’d suppressed these past long years. Five years, to be exact.

His mind barrages him with Ren’s nose in his neck, his hands careful on his abdomen, floating together in the sea.

Owlish blue eyes, a little arm wiggling through layers of blankets, five little fingers on each hand—

Memories that are of no significance to him and his commitment to the First Order. The images have no purpose, vestigial in their nature. He didn’t get this far in this galaxy falling victim to sentimentality. And Ren had never shown him more than the most deplorable levels of outright indifference in these past five years. Operating as if Hux isn’t even there, blatantly ignoring his orders and opinions, casually condemning his ideas and goals and treating him like a nuisance.

Hux blinks back tears, wrought with sorrow for his failed project. A failure that took the lives of thousands of dedicated officers and Stormtroopers. He blames Ren—distracted by that scavenger girl and his grudge against his estranged Jedi Master. Long enough to let the vile Resistance pilots decimate the oscillator, striking the final blow to Starkiller. All his efforts, from graduating from the Academy to Starkiller’s first and only demonstration of the First Order’s foothold against the New Republic, squandered in one final battle. Because Kylo Ren had a _grudge_.

Rage engulfs him, and Hux shouts, slamming his fist into the metal plating of the ship. Dutifully JN-3452 makes no indication she’d heard his outburst.

On cue, Ren inhales sharply into consciousness. Blinking at Hux with wet brown eyes. He says nothing, just watches Hux take breaths of bottled fury.

Ren hasn’t seen a lot of the general over the years. Though similar in rank, their jobs on the Finalizer require different methods of leadership. Other than their calls with Supreme Leader Snoke they haven’t been alone since their exile, long before the scavenger and her traitorous friends defeated him at his weakest. Before there was any hope he could locate Luke Skywalker and purge the galaxy of the Jedi once and for all.

He’s been robbed of the chance to get ahead of the Resistance’s search for Skywalker. The scavenger will inevitably reunite with Skywalker, beginning the resurgence of the Jedi enemy. He flushes with shame at the thought of her. He couldn’t even get her to consider crossing to his side. Not a single ounce of her was seduced. In a sick twist of fate, his failure pushed her farther towards the light.

And worst of all, Solo’s death has given him nothing. Apart from the heaviness of something cold and unnamed clotting in his gut. Solid and cancerous, black like oil.

Hux is searing him with his glower, crouching cross-legged on the floor next to him in his crumpled uniform. He’s close enough to touch but Ren doesn’t attempt to. They haven’t touched each other since Hux shut him out and Ren had lost interest in breaking down his walls. Not so much lost interest, as he had lost patience with Hux’s superciliousness that accommodated his rank and prestige. Now that they’re alone—

“We’re not alone,” Hux warns.

Ren sits up, grimacing at the movement in his abdomen. “I had no idea you had gotten better at Force-wielding. Mind reading suits you.” He’s impressed.

“I can’t read minds, Ren. You’re just so miserably obvious about everything you do.”

Ren takes in the redness of Hux’s eyelids. “Is the base…?”

Hux snorts, standing to his feet. “Starkiller’s gone. Nothing’s left of it. We’re on our way to Snoke to attest for our failures, so we have something to look forward to.”

Fear spikes within Ren and Hux acknowledges the projection with another guffaw, but makes no remark. Hux treads to the copilot’s chair and plops down, exhausted. JN-3452 diligently keeps her helmet forward. Speak when spoken to, unless utmost necessary.

Several hours drone past and Ren’s still slumped against the wall. “Hux.”

“What.” Hux preserves the distance between them.

“Help me up,” Ren groans from the floor behind them. So often Kylo Ren functions as the Finalizer’s terrorist, and seeing him a crumpled shell is bizarre to a Stormtrooper of JN-3452’s rank.

“Conserve your energy,” Hux advises.

“I have to shit.”

JN-3452’s helmet cocks slightly. Begrudgingly, Hux gets up from his chair. “Stay here,” he orders the Stormtrooper, who gladly obliges.

Hux hauls Ren up by his uninjured arm, careful not to lose his own balance. Ren grips Hux’s arms to steady himself, narrowly avoiding what would be an embarrassing collapse on top of him. “Can you manage the refresher by yourself?” Hux sneers once he regains his composure. He doesn’t want Ren’s hands on him.

“Yeah, I think I remember how.” Ren shuts the seal behind him, pointedly locking Hux out. No loss there.

The clarity of his reflection glares back at him. He takes in the full extent of his injuries, the worst being the ones on his face and his gut, inflicted by Solo’s pet Wookiee and the scavenger girl. He lurches forward, vomiting into the basin.

_Kylo Ren._

The Supreme Leader rarely comes to him in his mind but does so easily even in hyperspace. “Yes, Master,” he whispers low enough to not permeate the refresher door. He forces his stomach to calm itself.

_Your training is almost complete. You must come to me. Alone._

Ren’s confusion transmogrifies through their connection. His burn from the scavenger twists his features as if he’d punched the mirror and shattered glass, looking back at himself through the distorting web of fissures.

_The general’s completed his service. Even after his disastrous miscarriage of judgement, he managed to bring you to safety. That will be his final act of allegiance with the First Order._

He rolls his tongue against the film of bile rising in the back of his throat. “What do you want me to do?” Ren grits to his bleary reflection.

Snoke bombards his mind with cross outrage. _Do_ not _let him off that ship alive._

Outside, Hux paces around the breadth of the ship. “Did you fall in?” he sneers through the seal of the refresher door. Silence serves as his response.

Ren spits into the basin, itching to get the taste of sick out of his mouth. He hears Hux’s pestering but ignores him. Slurping several mouthfuls of water from his hand, Ren washes away the bile and the undigested caloric supplements he often tubes in when on missions. They taste the same going down as they do coming back up. The burn on his jaw reacts to his frenzied drinking, but his body cries for rehydration.

“Ren,” Hux calls through the door.

“Give me a minute,” Ren growls, muffled by the seal. Hux slithers away. Hopefully Ren didn’t have an accident.

The seal of the refresher breaks after a good fifteen minutes. “Glad you’re still with us,” Hux nags. JN-3452 makes no comment. She appreciates her own well-being.

Ren shuffles out of the refresher, staring past the floor. Stock still, shell-shocked.

“What’s the matter?” Hux asks, curbing his concern.

The Stormtrooper’s blaster flies from her holster, whipping past their heads to Ren’s open hand. Hux and JN-3452 stand to their feet.

“What are you doing?!” Hux hisses.

Two bolts to her chest and the Stormtrooper is down. Hux clenches his fists. “I swear, Ren—”

Ren hurdles Hux through the air with an outstretched hand and drives him against the wall. The force of it nearly makes him chomp off the tip of his tongue. Baring his teeth like a dog, Hux meets Ren’s pained expression. “Unhand me!”

“I'm following orders,” Ren growls, voice wavering. He's not convincing Hux that he believes what he's saying.

“What _orders?”_ Hux shivers as Ren grazes his temple with the barrel of the blaster.

Ren’s resolve wavers for infinite moment, nostrils flaring, forehead perspiring. Studying the paleness that ails the general, whiter than the falling snow.

Lips drawn into a grimace, Hux taps his head against Ren’s stolen blaster. “Snoke told you to kill me?” That bastard.

Hordes of human beings and other lifeforms have been slaughtered by his gracious hand, without so much as a second thought. His soul aches. After everything. After Solo—

He can't speak, can't admit what the Supreme Leader demands of him now.

Under Hux’s command Starkiller failed tragically. Execution is the loyal, honorable way to go for a man in Hux’s position. There's no question how easy it would be to snap that pale column of his neck, watch those fierce eyes glaze over, lifeless.

Hux’s throat bobs when the weapon drops with a harsh clatter.

Ren pushes into Hux with his chest, agitating his wounds. “You're like me. You're made to suffer,” he breathes in Hux’s face, still pinned to the durasteel wall. Hux angles his chin down to augment the pressure of Ren’s bandaged hand against his throat.

“What are you waiting for?” Hux groans. The hand on his throat lessens, only to find itself traveling, rediscovering the texture of hair on the back of Hux’s skull. Ren closes his eyes.

Ren wretches loose his belt, his tattered robes threatening to slip off his body. Confusion is palpable in the air between them. “When you get planetside, destroy this. You should keep nothing with you that the First Order can track.” Ren shoves the belt into Hux’s scuffed hand. He knows about the tracker and won’t leave Hux the chance to track him down ever again.

Hux’s red eyebrows pinch together, gripping the belt with two bony fists. “Ren…” His voice cracks around the name like a plea. This doesn’t make any sense.

Ren is already reprogramming the navigation, pulling them out of hyperspace. Corellia, Solo's home world. His gut weighs heavily with some concoction of bodily chemistry at the thought of going near that system, but this is the nearest inhabited one. He sets a course for their space.

“What are you doing?” Hux implores.

“What does it look like?” He keeps his eyes trained on the controls.

It's less than ten minutes before they come out of hyperspace. Hux is still holding Ren’s belt, staring at his mutilated profile.

Ren picks up the Stormtrooper’s blaster and passes it off to Hux. He stands upright with his back straight, instinctual when handed blaster rifles.

JN-3452’s white helmet reveals a pale human face lax with death. Ren discards it and her arm and chest armor for her underclothes beneath. Hux is slender. The Stormtrooper’s underclothes will suffice.

“Head for the icecap. It'll be cold but there won't be as much in the way if airspace patrols.” Ren passes him the bundle of black underclothes, stained with the scorching from the blaster bolts.

Hux takes them. His gaze never wavers. “I don't understand,” he pleads.

“Just go. I’ll deal with Snoke.”

Hux’s eyes plead a final parting gape. There’s no dealing with Snoke. Without any final words—no thank-you, nor goodbye—he climbs into the escape pod and blasts away from the ship. Away from the First Order, from Snoke, from this half put together Kylo Ren sparing his life.

 

\--

 

Snoke’s base is tucked away on one of the two hundred moons of a supermassive gaseous planet. Ren’s been here several times but only alone. His mind scours for the exact coordinates of the moon but the information is nowhere to be found. Snoke’s reach is intimate enough that he can scrub clean any and all memory of the world from Ren’s brain.

Begrudgingly, Ren calls to Snoke for his coordinates.

His mind brings him back to the days he spent alone with Hux on the cloner’s planet almost five years ago, tirelessly beaming his consciousness to Snoke’s location in hopes of rescue. He’s stronger than he was back then and is able to connect within mere moments.

A private part of him knows that if he was capable of reaching Snoke back then, he would have been disappointed to find rescue prematurely. He wouldn’t have had as many mental images of Hux waddling around with his heaving belly, red hair glowing in the sunlight.

He’s met with the coordinates, shivering against the singeing tugs of fury along his connection with his master. He programs the navigation.

Ren desperately tries to memorize the coordinates as he’s attempted to do many times before, all in vain. When he arrives to the system he’s already had the information taken from him.

The atmosphere on this moon is thin and nitrous and Snoke is the only being who can breathe it. Ren snaps on his rebreather, normally hidden under his helmet, and limps out of the shuttle. The straps of the rebreather dig into his burn but it doesn’t compare to the sting of the toxic air irritating the wounds uncovered by the transparent face mask.

He travels in his own beaten tracks from his past visits. The terrain of this windless moon never changes.

The landing pad is almost a half-cycle’s walk from Snoke’s hiding place. Not even his Knights have set foot on the base, a lair hidden under thick sheets of limestone. Ren passes the familiar landmarks—through the height of the stone valley that looms sky high, threatening to topple over. The crescent outline of the moon’s supermassive planet peeking from the walls of the trench, white and hazy in the glowing space-sky.

But of all the landmarks, the most memorable and most imposing feature of Snoke’s moon is the ebbing series of undefinable vibrations beneath its surface. The dark energy crawls from the soles of his feet to the bones comprising his spine.

Ren reaches the end of the trench. The stone floor under his boots greets him with a surge of vibration.

Snoke reveals himself. “I was wrong about you, Kylo Ren,” Snoke booms from the end of the cavern, jagged rocks above poised to take a bite out of him.

Ren kneels on the floor, wounds abrading viciously against his torn robe. The Supreme Leader maintains his distance and Ren awaits his explanation.

A feral fear spikes hotly from within when the rebreather mask supplying him with precious oxygen snaps off his face, flooding his senses with the poisonous atmosphere.

“You have failed to follow a direct order, and for what?!” the Supreme Leader growls.

Ren squeezes his eyes tight, he can’t help it. He wheezes, powerless to stop the air from burning his lungs. Scrabbling blindly at the ground like an insect with broken legs, he desperately follows the scrape of the rebreather edging further away from him. Of course he knows Hux still lives, maybe through reading Ren or through sensing Hux’s life-force. There’s no hiding from Supreme Leader Snoke. He’s failed again. It just might cost him his apprenticeship.

Snoke shows him mercy and lets him catch up to the mask. Ren clutches it to his face, gasping in the purifying oxygen. The skin of his healing gut ripped in his scuffle but he’ll have to wait to examine it later.

“He got away. I didn’t—” he coughs, “I didn’t see the use of chasing after him.”

“Do not _lie_ to me!” howls the Supreme Leader, marching closer. The distinct gait resembles a loosely screwed together biped droid.

The rebreather flies through the air, cracking against the cave’s wall. Ren shouts, gas tormenting him from the inside. Lungs irreparably scarred, a new hellish handicap he’ll have to overcome if he doesn’t die like this, blind and afraid because he was weak enough to let Hux live.

Hux, the man whose overzealousness with Starkiller had spearheaded their demise. The man who hardened enough Ren doesn’t doubt he’d celebrate Ren’s death here and now. The man he ushered to safety knowing full well Snoke would condemn his reprehensible act of weakness.

Yet somehow, he can’t bring himself to regret his actions. Darkness overcomes him before he can ask himself why.


	2. Chapter 2

 

“Tell me why we gotta do this again?” Finn groans to the pilot. He tilts his head back in his chair to watch the stars streak by the Millennium Falcon’s viewport.

Rey re-ties her hair into a simple bun on the crown of her head. “Because General Organa gave us this mission herself. We’re here to find answers.”

“Something tells me your insane, homicidal cousin would trick her into luring us out here. Probably because you made him even uglier. Which is saying a lot,” he babbles, in regards to Rey's account of their final encounter on Starkiller. Finn’s developed the habit of joking when he’s nervous. Even though they’re still in hyperspace. Shit only goes down when you exit hyperspace.

Hyperspace is Finn’s safe place. Terrifying, murderous reality can be faced right after. Not too long ago he’d be content to blast through space-time, away from the First Order and this galaxy full of humans and humanoids slowly killing each other. But that was then and this is now, and there’s no fight he’d rather be fighting. And more importantly, there’s no one else he’d rather be fighting alongside.

“There’s no tricking General Organa,” Rey assures.

“You know, it’s been over three years. Who’s to say he hasn’t gotten stronger?”

Chewbacca gnarrs from the Falcon’s hall, trailed by R2-D2, their spirited astromech companion. Finn knows Chewbacca’s demand all too well. “Alright, you can have your seat back.”

“We’ve gotten stronger, too. Besides, we don’t even know if it’s him.” Rey says. She palms her lightsaber hilt. When lit its beam is green like Luke’s first lightsaber he made himself. She used a joint from her staff to form the handle, employing its familiar shape into her Jedi weapon.

Finn has two blasters and a lightsaber of his own that Rey helped him make. He doesn’t use it unless he must. Its blade glows blue like Luke’s and his father before him.

“What if it’s a trap?” Finn cautions.

“The Force doesn’t send us into traps.”

“There’s a first time for everything,” Finn mutters. Rey and Chewbacca bring the Falcon out of hyperspace.

With practiced confidence Rey guides the Falcon to the planet’s surface. The land is a green-gray tundra, swirling with streams of sands and stones rolling with the easy breeze. The only landmarks are the tufts of scraggly bushes and a field of boulders nearby, though the horizon reveals a large, canopied forest and the peaks of mountains looming in the distance. “Finn and I will check out that field over there for lifeforms,” Rey tells Chewbacca. “Try and stay put so we can keep track of the ship. R2, you’re with us.” Her senses are pulling her towards the megaliths.

Finn slings along his resource pack, filled with rations, water, medical supplies and hidden compartments for vibroblades and an additional blaster. He can never have too many blasters. “You better be right about this.”

“It’s worth the look.”

“For _what_ , Rey?” Finn exasperates.

Rey can’t put the feeling into words. “It’s a way to help him. That’s all I’m sure of.” Though there’s nothing to be sure of in this galaxy, any more than she’s certain that Kylo Ren can ever be saved. “General Organa wanted us to find out if there was anything to the vision she had of this place.”

“This is a droid’s job.” Now Finn’s just arguing for the sake of it. R2-D2 beeps in sympathy.

“A droid can’t wield the Force, Finn. This is a chance to put our training to the test and—”

Rey ducks a projectile, a small stone that instead of breaking her tooth cracks into the boulder behind her.

“What was that?” Finn hisses, aiming his blaster at the source of the disturbance.

Squinting curiously past the boulders ahead of them, Rey puts one slender finger to her lips. Finn nods once, and points to the right with his nose. Rey also nods once, agreeing with his plan for her to flank around his path.

Another projectile smacks behind Finn, who dodges to avoid bruising his shin. It clanks on R2’s shelling and he whirs in confusion. Rapid-fire, another stone skims Finn’s side, colliding with the leather of his flight jacket. Not the same jacket Poe gifted him. Unfortunately that one was destroyed—which Finn stupidly apologized for after his final battle with Kylo Ren. Poe just laughed and laughed and gave him another one of his warm hugs.

Finn plasters himself to the closest boulder, peering around the edge with his blaster aimed to fire. He’s not particularly trigger happy but he does end up barraging his attacker with several bolts when a stone collides with his skull. That’s gonna have some major goosing.

“Finn! Stop shooting!” he hears Rey shout from up ahead.

“I just got—pebbled!” he squawks, rubbing his head.

“Don’t shoot! Get over here!”

Finn jogs and stumbles upon Rey pinning down some kind of kicking, growling tiny person. A child.

“Get off me!” squeals the boy, whipping his mop of sandy blond hair.

Rey complies but doesn’t relinquish the confiscated weapon—a makeshift sling-shot.

“Hey, I need that,” bickers the boy. His accent is similar to Rey’s.

“You’ll get it back. After we talk to you,” says Rey.

The boy crosses his arms, defiant.

Rey squats, looks him in the eyes. She’s seen his eyes on another before. Not physical likeness, but likeness in soul. Likeness to her own. “What’s your name?”

“I don’t have a name.” The boy looks at them as if they asked a stupid question. “I’m just me.”

“Everybody has a name,” Finn says, putting his hands on his hips.

“Well, I don’t. Can I have my spitter back? Please?” The boy holds his hand out expectantly, as if Rey is just gonna arm this mysterious, aggressive eight-nine-or-ten year old.

Interesting name for his weapon of choice. “Where do you come from?” Rey narrows her eyes.

The boy lunges, scrabbling for the sling-shot in Rey’s hand. Rey jumps to her feet, holding the weapon above and away from him and tugging his shirt to keep him off. Finn helps by restraining him and the boy thrashes, wiggling out of Finn’s grip like a wet worm.

Finally R2 catches up with them, studying the chaotic scene as he often does when humans are involved.

Finn and Rey don’t miss the healed burns and cuts on the boy’s hands and wrists in a way that lead them to think the scars travel up his forearms and in more terrible places. “Are you here alone? Where are your parents?” asks Rey, already knowing the answer.

“My father isn’t here.”

Finn eyes Rey, reading all her micro expressions with an ease only a closest friend could.

“Who’s your father?” Rey swallows.

The boy juts his chest out. “My father is a great warrior. His name is Kylo Ren, Master of the Knights of Ren. Maybe you’ve heard of him? He’s going to take over the galaxy one day.”

Rey pinches her fine brows together, matching Finn with their twin looks of astonishment. “You’re Kylo Ren’s son?”

“Mhmm,” the boy nods, beaming with pride.

“Did he do that to your hands?” Finn asks gravely, unable to stop his fearful curiosity from bubbling up.

“Finn!” Rey cries. That’s not a question you ask a child.

Unfazed, he boy shakes his head. “No, I’ve never met him.”

“What about your mother?” Rey asks softly. She has to know more.

“I don’t have a mother.”

Rey’s chest tightens, forcing away her own memories. “Everybody has a mother,” she says, quieter this time. Finn projects his own brand of sullenness, the age old grief for the family he never had. Rey’s story is just as painful.

The boy eyes his weapon.

She gives Finn one hard look, a request to please trust her, though Finn always will trust her. “Are you looking for your father?”

“Rey…” Finn warns, but his trepidation goes unnoticed.

Hope flutters over the boy’s green-blue eyes. “I wouldn’t know where to start. They galaxy is an enormous place.”

Rey continues. “Finn and I have been looking for Kylo Ren, too. He’s Finn, and I call myself Rey. We’ll have to figure out something to call you if you come with us. You can help us find him.”

“Rey, can I talk to you for a second?” Finn asks, squeezing his fists.

“Don’t. Move. Or I’m taking this.” Rey waves the boy’s ‘spitter’ in front of his pout.

Tugging Finn by his elbow, Rey speaks in hushed tones so the boy won’t hear. “He has to come with us.”

“Rey, this isn’t safe. We don’t know if he really is Kylo Ren’s son. And if he is, this could be some ploy to catch us with our guard down. This is how the First Order operates. They turn children into mercenaries,” Finn implores.

“We can’t just leave him! He _is_ Kylo Ren’s son. And even if he is trained to serve the First Order, no one is beyond saving. Don’t you wish someone got you out when you were a child?”

Her comment weighs heavily on his shoulders. “He could be dangerous.” Finn sticks with his opinion. Rey can take care of herself, but he will always do everything in his power to keep her safe.

Rey looks at the ground, then back up again to Finn. “We’ll bring him to Luke. Then we’ll decide what to do.”

“Is that a lightsaber?!” the boy interrupts, gravitating towards Finn’s belt.

Finn sways his hip away from the boy’s prying eyes. “It’s a very, very dangerous weapon. But yes, it’s a lightsaber,” he says gruffly.

“Are you a warrior, like Kylo Ren? Are you one of his knights?” The child stares at him with wide eyed wonder.

Finn gives him his best ‘what the fuck’ face. “No, no way.”

“So how about it? Are you coming with us?” Rey grins.

The boy digs stripes in the dirt with his boot. It’s too large for his slight frame, and so is the cloak and tie he wears around his tiny waist to hold the rags on his body. “I dunno. I don’t really get out much.”

“Well, is anyone expecting you somewhere?”

“No, there hasn’t really been anyone here since I made my spitter. I think they gave up on me.”

“Who’s they?” Finn interrogates.

“The caregivers.” The boy makes more stripes in the dirt.

“Finn, we should get going,” Rey urges. As a group they stalk though the boulders to the Falcon.

“Is that your caregiver?” pipes up the boy, pointing to R2.

Finn eyes the boy, uneasy. “No, that’s our droid. He’s helping us, if that’s what you mean.”

“Whatever he is, he looks mighty silly with his little leg out front,” the boy snorts. Finn smirks at the boy’s strange observations.

They all make it to the Millennium Falcon, and Chewbacca greets them onboard with a confounded growl.

“What a crazy ship,” the boy mutters to himself, taking in the intricacies of the Falcon. “I’ve read about ships before. Never one like this!”

“Chewie, this is…” She waves her hand. “Well, he doesn’t really have a name, but we’ll come up with something. He’s coming with us. To meet Luke.”

“I thought you said I was going to meet—” the boy’s jaw drops. “What is _that?!”_

“This is Chewie. He’s our friend,” Rey smirks.

Chewbacca hums, still wanting more of an explanation. Rey gives it to him. “We’re going to help this little one get back to his family. Kylo Ren is his father.”

This time Chewbacca roars and the boy squeals in fear, running to hide behind Finn. Rey places calming hands on Chewbacca’s carpeted arms. “We’re going to bring him to Luke. He’ll know what to do.” He replies with a softer growl of contempt and moves to the pilot’s chair.

“He does _not_ like me,” the boy says, matter of fact.

Finn can practically see Rey’s heart melt. “That’s not true. He just doesn’t like Kylo Ren.”

“Why not?” he pouts.

Out of the corner of Rey’s eye she can see Finn’s eyes bug out, shaking his head and giving her his ‘there ain’t no way I’m touching that’ face.

Rey places her hand on the boy’s shoulder. “We’ll talk about it later. Go sit with Finn while Chewie and I start up the ship.”

Finn can’t believe he’s admitting this to himself, but Kylo Ren’s kid is damn adorable squeezing his little fists as Chewbacca pilots the Falcon out of the planet’s atmosphere. He even cracks another smile when the kid giggles in delight as they make the jump to hyperspace. See? Hyperspace is pretty awesome.

 

\--

 

Hux fiddles with the shackles on his wrists that connect to his ankles and force him into an uncomfortable pretzel. The guard will come back anytime now!

The restraints do not yield and he slumps forward, defeated. After all these lonesome years on the run from Snoke, Hux is captured by a bounty hunter. A Chiss, no less. Shameful.

Hux growls in frustration when he hears footsteps outside his cell. It's not the guard. “I never thought in my lifetime that I'd the see great General Hux make himself the galaxy's most wanted,” drawls the bounty hunter. “The destroyer of worlds. You're smaller than I expected. Like a female, except for that beard. Well, I guess it depends on the female,” he chuckles at his own joke.

“I don't have any idea what you're talking about. You have me confused with someone else, someone who gives a shit,” Hux drones, not bothering to feign sincerity.

The Chiss laughs some more, slicking his hair back with his gloved hand. “You're more than worth the trouble.” He fists Hux’s hair and exposes the back of his neck. “Hold still, pet.”

Hux grits his teeth as the tracker is injected painfully in the meat of his neck. He won't give the Chiss the satisfaction of hearing his scream.

“Don't run off, now. There's nowhere to run to,” he sneers, patting Hux’s bearded cheek.

“Why would I? I'm having so much fun here.”

The Chiss leaves him to seethe in the dark.

The pain in his neck fizzles to a dull throb when an explosion rumbles his cell. He scoots to the corner on the hunch that the intruder to the bounty hunter's ship is after him and not these criminals. He’d do anything to get out of these damned restraints.

Muffled screams permeate the walls. A delirious part of him hopes it's Kylo Ren storming the hunter's lair to carry him to safety, but the mere idea is foolish. Ren’s the First Order’s sole enforcer, not his knight in shining armor. The nightmare embodying his past, his downfall.

His cell slides open, revealing a tall figure in a mask. Hux glares up at the intruder. His savior. Or executioner.

The figure unclasps its mask, exposing a familiar face. “I'm here to rescue you, General.”

Captain Phasma smirks down at him, pinning her helmet against her hip like a Resistance fighter pilot posing in a propaganda poster. The helmet is a deep blue and black, unlike her chrome getup and more akin to something he’d expect another bounty hunter to wear.

“How did you find me?”

Phasma kneels in front of him to unsolder his restraints with a thermal shear. “Haven't you heard? We're wanted criminals.”

He'd heard about the warrant for Phasma’s arrest after her failure on Starkiller, but never expected her to seek him out, and definitely never thought she'd rescue him from the hands of bounty hunters. “That doesn't explain why or how you found me.”

The black paint smeared around her eyes brightens those stone cold irises, even as she narrows them. “I tracked the people who were tracking you. We’re going to kill the bastard who did this to us and take back what's rightfully ours. Follow me,” she orders, as if she was once his superior.

Hux limps along behind her, fingers itching for one of his blasters. It appears Phasma slaughtered the whole ship though, so there'd be nothing to shoot at.

Beyond the Outer Rim, Hux has built his sorry excuse for a life in his refuge. His father would be ashamed to learn that Hux became a fugitive against the First Order, one of the most wanted in the entire galaxy. All he’s left behind—before he had gotten captured—was a ghost of himself on a small urban planet far beyond where Snoke can find him. His only threat was the large tusked humanoids that stampeded nightly over his hermit hovel, and the lesser than average gravitation index, weakening his muscles bit by bit.

He hasn’t been ‘home’ in almost three months, however. He was caught while roaming Ator for Order intelligence and rare weapons, feeling much like an anarchic Resistance insurgent on the loose.

“So you want to penetrate First Order airspace with a stolen freighter, infiltrate the Finalizer—just the two of us—and kill Kylo Ren? You must realize how impossible that is.” Hux’s own plan is similar, but involved more emotional manipulation and fewer explosives. And cornering Ren planetside, where there’d be less security.

Phasma is an expert tactician but he’d prefer to handle Ren alone. He doesn’t want to deal with her killing Ren before he can influence Ren into committing the ultimate act of treason—strike down Snoke once and for all. It’s simple—He will use Ren’s weakness for him against him. Phasma doesn’t factor into the equation. The most successful coups spawn from one man. Betrayal is an inherited factor of partnerships, which is why he is—and always will be—alone.

Phasma stills her time roughened hands against the ship's controls. “There's nothing for us here. This isn't living, General. It's cowardice.”

“Don’t talk to me about cowardice. I’ve made it quite far without you or anyone, for that matter.” Especially Ren, the man who he has to thank for his suffering. “You never did tell me how you ended up on the Order’s hit list,” he says haughtily. He's heard the tale before but would very much like to hear it from Phasma herself.

A conical dagger whips past his head, nearly slicing his ear clean off. Hux raises one coppery brow, unfazed.

“You're no better than me. You're guilty of misjudgment. The worst of us all.” Her troops would have overtaken the Resistance scum, blasting them clean off the base if it weren't for that foolish, unstable Kylo Ren losing his battle against that traitorous FN-2187 and that damned scavenger girl.

Plucking the dagger from the wall behind him, Hux scrapes it along the bush of his jaw. Exile has mistreated his hygiene and appearance. But he didn't have much in the way of an easy disguise, relying on his beard and his Ren-like hooded robe. “I didn't choose this way of life. Like you I had it chosen for me. But I'd still very much like to keep it,” he argues.

“How'd they catch you?” Phasma asks, inflecting as if she already can predict the answer.

“I don't see how that's relevant.”

“You haven't graced the galaxy in years, but you come to Ator on a whim? Fully knowing that you have a target on your back? What other reason would you have to walk one of the most populated systems, in the Core Worlds, no less?”

Hux stands, squaring his shoulders. She's right, ultimately. He's been keeping tabs on Ren for years, his kill count, the planets he pillages. Ren had stolen his life, his identity. He wants it back. “I'm no team player, Phasma and I never pegged you for one either. If I'm going after him, it's not to kill him. He’s the only individual who can defeat Snoke. Killing him then would be an afterthought.” Hux is certain of it.

“And look how far the one-manned army joke has worked out for you,” she scoffs. “Might I remind you how pathetic you looked crumpled in a ball in a dirty cell with no hope of escaping.” A blow to his pride.

Hux had always respected her drive. Perhaps he can use this to his advantage. “Back on Ator I have a stash of weaponry, ones I know will work on Ren.” He thinks back to the colorful collection of Force-inhibitors, all weaponized save for the Force-inhibitor collar he probably won’t get close enough to Ren to be able to use.

He doubts he’ll be able to use his deathswitch either, a sophisticated device he bartered for on a whim. It serves as a way to ever keep Ren from killing him—once injected into their chests, an internal trigger will stop Ren’s heart if Hux’s heart ever stops. An insurance policy, everlasting and irreversible. “But the bounty hunter shot me with a tracking device so I can't take the chance of getting caught again. You'll have to go planetside to find the case—what are you doing?”

Phasma flicks open a long stiletto blade. “It'd be faster if I cut it out of you so you can bring me to your armory. Time is of the essence.” She also doesn't want him to run off with her ship.

Damn her, she's right. Hux grimaces and sits back down again. She's all too happy to hack away at his neck.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time jump! About three years after the events of The Force Awakens. And yes, there is a lot of mystery over the kylux gayby's existence! All will be revealed! :) Thank you for reading!!!


	3. Chapter 3

Hux remains reluctant to trust Phasma to watch his back, so they aim to separate once aboard the Finalizer and reconvene. Besides, it’s faster that way. Phasma after General Kaplan—the new commander of the Finalizer—and Hux after Kylo Ren—his body count staggering to extraordinary levels since Hux’s disappearance.

“What makes you think he's going to listen to you?” Phasma asks, preparing to drop her freighter out of light speed.

“I can be very convincing,” he answers truthfully. Phasma regards him, unimpressed. Hux flares his nostrils, avoiding those steely blue eyes. “We had become involved. Years ago. I plan to use that to my advantage.”

Phasma looks pointedly at him. “Involved how?” she deadpans.

“Don't make me spell it out,” Hux groans, strapping on one of his many weaponized Force inhibitors.

“You can't be serious.”

Hux says nothing.

“So your entire plan hinges on your and _Kylo Ren’s_ forbidden love affair?”

Hux scoffs. “It worked before. That's why he let me go. Snoke had ordered him to execute me but he spared my life and let me escape. He defied Snoke’s will—I’m certain I can get him to turn against Snoke and get us back to our rightful places.” Rumor has it Ren had struck down his own father the same night.

“He could have let you go for any number of reasons! Maybe he wanted to let you run so he could hunt you down, in case he ever got bored. Or he didn't want to waste his energy. But let's say he did. Let's say he _let you go_ as some kind of act of eternal devotion. Things have changed. You're useless to him now. Look at you.”

Hux buckles on his holster with a satisfying click. “Well, I guess you should try your hardest not to get killed when overtaking the bridge.”

Phasma primes her flamethrower. “Trust me. I've got my own tricks. You, however, I worry.”

“What makes your plan more effective?” He's not the only one whose failure would lead to their demise.

“You just take care of Kylo Ren. Leave the officers to me.”

The Finalizer yields to their ship's cloaking device. It's been years and the new Finalizer heads have yet to post armed troopers at the incinerator’s exhaust systems in addition to their computerized security system. This foolishness will cost many of them their lives.

“I'll reform the security system with the misreading. You find and neutralize Kylo Ren.” She waves a hand and scrunches her nose. “However you have to do that,” her mind barraging her with all sorts of images of Hux and Kylo Ren copulating.

 “On it.” Hux may not trust Phasma but he entrusts that she can carry through with her threats.

“This is your captain speaking,” Phasma surprises him by calling through what looks like a refurbished Stormtrooper transmitter device.

She speaks several lines of poetic phrases, all of which in foreign tongue. Hux narrows his eyes, utterly confused.

Her lyrical, authoritative voice touches the ears of every male and female Stormtrooper on board, all thirty thousand of them.

“There you go. Now everyone knows we're here. I don’t know if that includes Kylo Ren, but I'll leave him to you.”

“What—what did you just do?”

“Activated my insurance policy.”

_“What?”_

 “Shortly after FN-2187’s defection I initiated my experimental complacency therapy to all of my troops. All the advantages of a clone army with none of the genetic inferiorities. After that, I had the power of commandment, kill codes, the authority of thousands at my side. Only when spoken by me, however. If you want something done, you'll have to ask nicely.” She had been exiled before she could test her experimental treatments, but luckily the higher ranking Alpha Stormtroopers have remained loyal to her by putting the therapies into practice in her absence.

 “If you could just mind control every Stormtrooper then what in all hells do you need me for!” Hux demands, gleeful and bewildered. This could actually work!

They pass a line of troopers, all poised stiffly at attention. Phasma continues. “I figured if I found you, I could follow through once you show me how to outplay Kylo Ren. You were the one who worked with him more closely than I had,” though she had no idea how close the two truly had been. “I couldn't have done this without you, General,” Phasma explains, nodding to every posted trooper in the hall, whom of which each salute their leader. “Now it's your turn. This'll all be for nothing if you can't get Kylo Ren to comply. If you can't, don't hesitate to kill him.”

Hux gapes at his partner. That's one hell of an insurance policy. He severely underestimated her.

“You have a straight shot to Kylo Ren’s quarters now,” Phasma informs him after speaking over the transmitter. “And General,” she calls as Hux makes a beeline for Ren’s area of the ship. “If anything happens to me, the Stormtroopers have a solution for that as well,” she threatens.

Hux nods, wondering what just happened. Why didn't he think to pre-program his military?

Because he'd never imagined exile from the First Order would have been a possibility. That someone like Ren could leave his life in shambles, and then come out of top. No longer will Hux settle for failure.

He rounds the corner and every patrolling Stormtrooper carries on with their day as if he were invisible. Hux senses Ren close by and is confident Ren has sensed him as well before he stepped aboard the star destroyer. Likely waiting to lunge at him around the next bend with his lightsaber aimed to take his legs off.

 _What are you doing here?_ The demand materializes in Hux’s mind.

Against his will Hux shivers at the intimate, familiar voice. Ren hadn't spoken in his mind since before he was General. He sees Ren peer from the end if the next hall. The mask, the breadth of those shoulders, every inch of his form more assuming than the last.

Stupidity prevents Hux from shooting him with a ray of his weaponized Force inhibitor. Utter stupidity along with other nameless human fallacies. Ren seizes him by the waist, pushing him backwards into a hidden armory.

Hux lets himself be led. Perhaps not all is lost. He can entrap Ren in privacy.

“How did you get aboard this ship?” Ren hisses through his vocabulator.

“You should really be concerned with how quickly your Stormtrooper army has turned against you. Phasma’s retaken control of her troops. While you were up here—”

“Chasing after you, it would seem,” Ren interrupts.

Hux gawks, fidgeting under Ren’s undetectable gaze. “Did you hear what I said? Your troops are no longer loyal to you or to your _Supreme Leader_.”

Relinquishing his hold on Hux, Ren removes the seal of his helmet. Hux is bombarded with the oblong face of his ex-partner. The scar he'd bore from their last battle against the Resistance has thinned to a faded smear. He'd probably had the opportunity to heal it completely but kept it for character. As if that face needed any more character.

“How,” Ren growls, finally behaving in the First Order’s interests. He brands Hux with a seething hazel glare, taking in Hux’s shaggy head of red hair and thick beard on his jaw. Ren wants to tug on it, make Hux’s eyes bug out.

“She programmed them to obey her through verbal triggers through their transmitters.”

“Why?” He'll devise a slow and painful method of slaughter for her.

“To take back her army,” Hux repeats himself.

“And what about you? What's your play? All by yourself with your,” Ren looks down his body, and back up again. “Tool belt.”

How is it that after all these years, Ren has such an impassioned effect on him? “I’m here to recruit you. We can overthrow Snoke—we’ll no longer have to abide by his…” Hux trails off, seething when Ren breaks out into wild, toothy chuckles.

“You’re a fugitive,” Ren spits. “What could you possibly do?”

Hux activates one of his Force inhibitors with an unseen activator on his ankle. When Ren realizes what he’s done, he brings a bone-breaking hand to Hux’s neck. “Destroy that or I’ll crush you,” Ren growls.

It takes every ounce of willpower not to claw at Ren’s gloved hand. He brandishes the stiletto blade he’d lifted off of Phasma. Just as his mind threatens to cloud over Ren relinquishes his grip to fondle each and every contraption under Hux’s clothing, desperate for reprieve from the ailing inhibitor.

Hux shudders, reacting to Ren’s taunting touch despite his resolve. He grips the handle of his blade, angling it painfully to Ren’s throat. Ren slams bodily into the wall behind him. That’s better.

“What I _do_ is survive, Ren. I’m tired of cowering from Snoke. I know that you are too. We can end this.”

“There’s no hope for you if you think there’s any going back,” Ren grits, chin digging into his collar so that the skin under his jaw crinkles up unflatteringly. He blinks away spots in his eyes. The power from Hux’s Force inhibitors is potent, overbearing to his senses like the stench of rotting flesh. “There’s nothing left for you here, _General._ I find the mere idea of partnering with you—a fugitive, a _coward_ —entertaining, to say the least. What could you possibly offer the Order? What use are you to me? _”_

Enraged, Hux shoves him backwards. The audacity he has! “This is your fault! You did this! I’ve carried the burden of your failures, while you operate without consequence.”

“I should have killed you when I had the chance.” If Ren truly wanted to strike Hux down he could have long ago, and they both know it.

“What’s stopping you now?” Hux genuinely wants to know.

Ren smiles. “I missed watching you squirm.”

Hux sees red. Blinded with rage, he drives the blade deep into Ren’s neck.

It would have been a killing blow if it weren’t for Ren’s reflexes, still agile even under the influence of the inhibitors. Ren’s eyes boggle in feral shock, attempting to stop the bleeding with his hand.

Satisfied he won’t suffer from imminent death, Ren lunges, gripping Hux by his hair and smashing his head against the durasteel behind him. Two hard blows to knock him unconscious.

Groaning with exhaustion, Ren rips at Hux’s clothes for his inhibitor, heartbeat spiking in delight when he locates it in Hux’s boots. He deactivates it with a simple click, allowing the Force to reenter his parched senses.

Ren wavers when he stands to his feet. The blood loss is weakening his mortal shell. With a practiced steadiness, Ren thumbs on his lightsaber. Like his old lightsaber it blazes electric red, but the crystal hadn’t required the cross guard vents of his first several models. Its cylinder hilt ripples with notching for his grip, every bit as black as his last one.

He grimaces. Bringing the edge of the beam cauterizes the wound, growling in pain with Hux’s red-reflecting incapacitated form as the only witness. He can regenerate the cells later. After he takes care of Phasma, another criminal against the First Order. He deposits Hux in his personal chambers, locking him in his bedroom like a problem child.

“Happy you could join us, Kylo Ren,” Phasma booms from across the bridge. Every officer is shaking in their boots, except for General Kaplan who lies dead, immolated by Phasma’s flamethrower. “Where’s your boyfriend? You haven’t killed him, have you?”

“The Supreme Leader will not tolerate mutiny, and neither will I.” Ren activates his lightsaber.

Dozens of Stormtroopers line around the control room draw their weapons, aimed for Ren’s center of mass. Ren keeps his saber lit.

“I know you can stop a blaster bolt. Ever tried a hundred? Two hundred?” Phasma deadpans.

Ren’s cloaked shoulders rise and fall with the effort of his heaving breaths. He has no plans on testing Phasma’s theory. He deactivates his saber.

“Well, good to know there’s a brain in that helmet after all.” How liberating it is to put Kylo Ren in his place.

Several of the lower ranking officers stare at her in shock. None of them would ever live long enough to relish making a comment like that to Kylo Ren!

“If you ever want to serve on this ship again, you are to leave here and strike down Snoke. Once you return with his head, we’ll adjust our arrangement.” Figures Hux was incapable of turning Kylo Ren. Her only mistake with the reclamation of the Finalizer was thinking she needed Hux at all. How easy it was for her to instill an ultimatum, one Kylo Ren couldn’t refuse.

“He’d sooner destroy this entire fleet, Phasma,” Ren says, level. “You and I both know that.”

“With what?! These officers? They’re going to be replaced if they don’t comply with my will. Replaced like I had been. I’ve already activated my troopers on the subsidiary space stations, and it’s only a matter of time before I side with every First Order star destroyer in the galaxy.” Phasma clacks over to Ren’s personal space, dirty boots scuffing the waxy floor. She eyes him, level, in hopes to tap into the remnants of their mutual respect. “End Snoke now and we can be on the same team again.”

Ren glowers at the lines of Stormtroopers filing in like worker bees conforming to the whims of their queen. He storms back to his rooms without a word, longing to slice through the Stormtroopers with his lightsaber until all that’s left is charred flesh, bone, and betaplast.

Hux wakes some indeterminate time later, groaning deeply at the throbbing in his skull. Ren concussed him. He kind of deserved it. Hux wouldn’t let Ren get away with stabbing him a hairsbreadth from the jugular.

All his weapons are gone, incinerated most likely.

Or not. He finds them next to the bed in a heap. Ren’s bed, if the smell is any indication. It’s not unpleasant, but it’s distinct and earthy and reinvigorates Hux’s repressed memories. Hux stays far away from it.

Hux shuffles through the weapons, selecting the smaller ones. One inhibitor collar, Phasma’s stiletto blade, and  the small, discrete packaging of the deathswitch, pocketing them for later. Ren just left these deadly weapons here for his taking, not even considering him a real threat. He’ll regret it. Unless he didn’t actually know what they were for, which is equally as likely.

The door hisses open and Ren storms in, immediately pacing back and forth around his room. Like Hux isn’t standing awkwardly in the middle of it.

“How’d it go?” Hux asks blandly.

Ren can’t stand to see Hux on his two feet, so he Force-pushes him backwards and he lands on his back, sprawled, a pinned specimen under a microscope. His sore neck and head throb under the attack.

“Shut up. I’m thinking.” Ren pries off his mask, letting it thud to the floor.

Each of Ren’s enraged breaths crackles off into wheezes, while Hux struggles against the unrelenting weight of his energy. Ren doesn’t let up. “What’s the real reason you’ve come all this way? Phasma doesn’t need you and showed me no desire she ever will.”

Ren’s eyes are red around his lower lids. His blood pressure is rising, growing more volatile by the second. All that rage now focused on Hux, lying open and exposed. “You hate me, for what? Saving your life? I was returning the favor. You could have easily left me on Starkiller.”

“I was following orders. You were disobeying them,” Hux spits. Ren should have killed him those years ago.

His statement angers Ren even more. Bombarding Hux with his projection of rage, Ren climbs over the quivering ex-General, straddling him on all fours like a leering cat. Ren’s scarf dangles, brushing Hux’s haired chin. All Hux can do is glare hotly at the man above him. Ren’s wheezing increases in its ferocity.

“You came back for me, is that it?” Ren bares his teeth, ogling the way Hux recoils. “How often did you dream of our reunion? Of this moment? Did you think of what you’d do if you saw me again?”

Hux attempts a brutish head butt, which Ren dodges. Hux wants to claw that stupid amused grin off his face. “No, but clearly _you_ had. What’s wrong with your breath? You sound like a deflating tire.”

Ren ignores the question, heedlessly bearing down on him, deep down past his walls. “No…I know why. I know why you came back.”

Hux waits impatiently for him to explain whatever he thinks he knows. Until Ren trails a hand down his side—to which Hux resists an eye-roll—then to the waistline of his fitted cargo pants.

Only he doesn’t reach inside for some tasteless molestation. He traces his gloved fingers higher to the flatness of his stomach. Dragging his finger along his abdomen where the skin fades to a surgical scar.

“You want him back, don’t you? You’ve never cared for another living creature besides yourself, but you care about that little baby. Don’t you?”

After a beat of silent gaping from Hux—who is normally the master of comebacks—Ren wonders if he broke his brain.

Ren’s about to continue when Hux bombards his nose with his head with enough strength to break it. Pain lances his skull, blinding him.

Rolling off to his side, Ren leaves Hux to his groveling and steps into his refresher to tend to his injury. Still wheezing pathetically.

Hux sits up, shaking the feeling of head to toe Ren. Now both the front and back sides of his skull ache, but it was worth it to shut Ren up for this short while.

Ren walks out of the stall toting a first aid kit. He'd never figured Kylo Ren, Master of the Knights of Ren or whatever he calls himself, has a medical kit stowed away in his refresher like an organized housewife. It makes sense, given all the bodily harm Ren inflicts on himself. Or inflicted on him, but when that happens it's always Ren’s fault.

He starts with salve on his lightsaber burn then sets his nose with a taped bandage. Operating, again, like Hux isn't even there.

Ren looks as if he'd wish to apologize. He's apologized to Hux before—and meant it—but Hux would be surprised by any empathetic response coming from Ren now.

“I know where to find him,” Ren cautions, voice muffled by his inflamed nose. There's a kind of calm about him after an outburst.

“I don't care,” Hux claims.

“Yeah,” he scoffs, not convinced in the least.

Hux swallows, turning away from Ren. “There's no logical reason why I'd come back for that.” The comment didn't need to be said but he'd voiced it anyway. A disclaimer to establish his lack of feelings.

Ren stares at Hux for a long time, noting every flutter of his eyelashes, every twitch of his lip.

“We need to go,” Ren says, breaking the silence.

“To where?” Hux asks, meeting his eyes.

“I'm doing what you asked,” Ren says. “We’re going after Snoke.”


	4. Chapter 4

 

Rey helps the boy down the Falcon’s ladder onto the forest moon’s landing pad. Meris III is one of Rey and Finn’s training places. Luke enjoys it here because off the ample plant life, much like Dagobah’s terrain where he’d trained with the great Jedi master Yoda.

This world has no significance to the Jedi or the restoration of the New Republic, so it’s safe to bring the boy here in case he’s some kind of child operative. Rey doesn’t believe so. The boy is just a boy, born into the chaos like everyone else.

Luke is right outside waiting to meet them. No longer donning a heavy cloak, Luke prefers to tie a simple Jedi robe to mark his reclaimed Jedi mastership. Too little, too late, if one would ask Rey.

It’s been a while since she held onto her grudge against Luke for abandoning her. He’d lost everything—his wife—her mother, the Jedi, his only child, all by the hand of his most promising student. His prodigy. His family.

Any room he could have made for Rey in his life of solitude would have certainly ended in bloodshed. He had desperately explained to her how it would have been far too dangerous for her to continue her training. She remembers his hands cradling her crying face. One metal, one flesh, but both warm with life.

She watched his old, sorrowful features contort in pain as he relived when he stole away her memories of their life together, of her fellow padawan slaughtered. Of her mother’s eyes wide with shock as she lie dead. Mara was her name, Luke told her with a fond smile. Mara Jade Skywalker.

Sometimes during his decades alone on his island, Mara would come to him, scolding him for his cowardice. Rey believes in ghosts, and has only a precious few memories of her mother, but knows she would never berate Luke after her death, a man who is already tearing himself apart. Her visage was nothing more than a manifestation of Luke’s guilt.

Rey places a hand on the little boy’s tiny shoulder. Much like herself, the boy’s growth has been stunted. It’s possible he might be small for the rest of his life, having been abandoned at such a young age. Good thing he’s with his family now.

She lets the boy hold his spitter but warns him that there will be consequences if he hurts anyone.

“Where’s Kylo Ren? Is he here?” the boy asks Luke before he gets a chance to introduce himself.

Luke kneels low, joints creaking in protest. He eyes scrutinize the boy’s wide innocent ones. “He’s not here. But I’m Luke Skywalker. I’m Kylo Ren’s uncle. So that makes us family.”

Chewbacca mumbles distantly from where he and Finn are tending to the Falcon. Distaste, confusion, contempt.

The boy looks back up at Rey for confirmation. “This is the craziest day ever,” the boy says. He tucks away his weapon, deciding he won’t need it for a while. He senses no threat from these new people. Not even the tall, hairy man-beast, who still doesn’t like him. It’s alright, though. He doesn’t have to be liked by everybody. Maybe Chewie would want to hunt with him sometime. Maybe they’d have fun catching some long-tailed critters, or the leathery ones with round ears and bug-eyes.

“And I should have told you this earlier, but Kylo Ren is my family, too. He’s my cousin, so that makes _us_ family,” Rey smiles. Luke casts his eyes to the ground at Rey’s lack of disclosure of their own relation. She doesn’t realize she’d done so.

“Really?!” The boy blossoms with delight. This really _is_ the craziest day of his life!

“And we’re all looking for Kylo Ren,” Luke tells him. “Let’s go inside.”

The boy follows them eagerly. Chewbacca and R2 decide to stay with the ship, nodding to Finn when he follows the Skywalkers to the nearby shelter. The boy looks back at him to smile, all teeth. Finn smiles back. This is so weird. It would be weirder if Kylo Ren’s kid looked less like a freckled, sandy blond haired cherub.

His mind supplies an image of how he’d imagine Kylo Ren as a child. He’d have his schnoz, unlike his son who has bright, even features. Also the same hairstyle, but black instead of light, and face shape and expressive mouth, but both the young Kylo Ren in his mind and the boy in front of him have yet to mature into their jaws.

But where Kylo Ren has fierce, dark brown eyes, he makes note of the boy’s mischievous green-blue ones that are so striking that an uneasy chill splinters through his core, as they glint with innocuous delight.

Finn shakes off the feeling. He’s just a child, giddily riding the waves of this new adventure. It’s not fair he’d been born into this madness, any more than Finn himself had.

“What may we call you?” Luke asks gently. He places a bowl of stew in front of the boy.

He’s never eaten anything like this before. It has little chunks of meat and plants. He hopes Luke Skywalker knows which ones are good, and which ones make your throat itch. Taking a leap of faith, he fingers a bulb of some vegetable into his mouth. It tastes sweet, so he plucks out some more.

“This is so tasty. How did you find all these things?”

“This planet is very fruitful.” Rey passes him a spoon. “Here. For the broth.”

The boy connects the dots immediately. “This is so useful. How did you make this? Did someone give this to you?” he asks, referring to the spoon. He needs one of these.

He still hasn’t answered Luke’s question because too much is happening at once. So Luke repeats himself, studying the way the stew fascinates the boy.

“Are people going to ask me that all the time?” he looks up at Rey.

“Yes, which is why you should think really hard about what you want to be called.”

The boy stirs the stew with his spoon, looking inside for answers. The name comes to him from deep within genetic memory, but he attributes it to his instinct, like anything else he does. “Marin. That’s what my father wanted to call me. I suppose I can call myself that.” He’s toyed with the name before but he never thought any lifeforms would ever bother wanting to know.

Rey smiles at him. He likes when Rey smiles. No one’s smiled at him as much as she has. “That’s a perfect name.”

“Alright, Marin,” Luke’s the first to try the name out. “Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?”

Marin purses his lips in thought. “I like hunting and fishing and building rock castles. What about you guys?”

Luke blinks several times, carefully charting his choice of words. The mind of a child is incredibly malleable. “Rey and I like meditating. And sparring. And cooking, too.”

“You meditate?” the boy asks, inquisitive.

“We do, indeed. Do you?”

Marin shrugs. “I guess. I still have a lot to learn about the Force.”

“You know what the Force is?”

“Of course. Kylo Ren is a master at wielding the Force. That's where he gets his power. One day I'm going to be his apprentice and he’ll teach me all about the Force.”

There are so many questions on the tips of the two Skywalkers’ tongues. “Who told you that?” Luke digs.

“Supreme Leader Snoke,” Marin says without explanation. He scoops another spoonful of broth past his lips.

Rey and Luke exchange worrisome glances. “Is he the one who raised you? Taught you how to speak, and all you other skills like hunting?” Luke asks patiently.

Marin clicks his tongue. “No, I've never met him. He used to come to me in my head like how I do to myself. But the thoughts weren't mine at all.”

“Used to?” This time Rey asks for the clarification.

“Uh-huh. I haven't heard from him since I made my spitter.”

“How long ago was that?”

Marin shrugs. “A while.”

“So how did you learn to speak so well?” Rey continues.

“My caregivers, they gave me readings to do. About the First Order, the Empire, biology, plant life, the galaxy—you name it, I’ve read it.”

Finn guards his corner of the room with his arms crossed. He doesn't intrude on the interrogation.

“Caregivers? Who were they?”

“They were metal but the shape of men. They always had paper books for me to read.”

“Droids?” Rey clarifies. “Like R2?”

“Is that what you call them?” He’s a little embarrassed to not know the name but he’d only called them one thing.

Rey nods, and Marin shakes his head once. “Well, it doesn't matter. I haven't seen them in forever. They probably won't even get worried that I'm not on my planet anymore.”

The three continue their conversation, Marin providing most of the explanations. He describes a life in solitude where his thrive for education seems to be predisposed, like an inherited trait. If only most lifeforms were as lucky. Intelligence is the only fortunate aspect of his life, however. Rey’s heart heaves with the bone deep pity she feels for the boy, how oblivious he is to the tragic nature of his own existence.

The metal of Luke’s hand catches Marin’s eye. “Woah. Are you part droid?” Marin tests out the new word he’s learned today.

Luke extends the plates of his fingers. “No, I lost my hand and doctors replaced it for me.”

“How did you manage that?” Sounds painful.

Luke only pauses for a moment. “In battle.”

The boy’s satisfied with the answer. Luke rubs the fingers of his flesh hand together. “Marin, would you mind if I take a look in your head with my own?”

Marin frowns. “How do you mean?”

“Like meditating, but only lightly. And I’d be doing most of the maneuvering.” Luke holds out his flesh hand, waiting for the boy to make his choice.

“I suppose that’s alright with me,” he agrees, sitting up straighter in his chair to grab Luke’s hand with his own.

Luke and Rey make no comment about the state of the boy’s hand, the scars that mar his young skin. “Just close your eyes. Don’t be afraid,” he instructs.

Rey nibbles at the skin of her thumb, a childhood habit she developed when food was scarcer than ever and her tongue craved the salt of dead skin. All Luke and Marin are doing are holding hands across the table, their expressionless features not divulging what effect Luke has on Marin, and what Marin has on Luke.

Exhaling, Luke gently releases the boy’s hand. “Rey and I are going to talk outside. Would you mind waiting with Finn? He can tell you all about his training and about the Jedi.”

This idea is most surprising to both Finn and Rey, but Luke smiles, confident in their ability to handle the child’s questions. Marin proclaims that “the Jedi are extinct!” without hesitation.

Outside the stone shelter, Rey and Luke convene with Chewbacca at the Falcon.

Luke surprises them all when he speaks first, to Rey. “I think he belongs with you.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you and Finn. You can take him to Leia where he can get a proper upbringing. Not as anyone's apprentice, just yet. It wouldn’t be wise.”

 “What did you see when you looked into his mind?” Rey asks gravely.

Luke looks down at the ground. “He’s strong with the Force, strong like Ben was at that age. Though somehow different. I can’t explain it.” No one calls him Ben besides Luke and General Organa. “He’s extremely bright. Driven.”

“Is he to be trained to become a Jedi Knight?”

“Oh, no, no, no,” Luke shakes his head, conflicted. “Maybe. It’s too dangerous to leave him unchecked.”

“What if _he_ comes after him?” Rey voices her deepest concerns. Kylo Ren is this galaxy’s greatest threat.

Luke looks Rey deep into her eyes. “Marin’s path lies with yours now. You’ll protect him. Guide him.”

Inside the shelter, a heated debate continues.

“Finn, that makes no sense. How are you alive if you betrayed Kylo Ren?”

“Well, he tried to kill us, but we kicked his butt,” Finn leans back smugly.

“No one can defeat Kylo Ren. He must have let you go. You better watch out. He might be coming back for you,” Marin warns.

“Well, Rey and I sure did. He can tell you all about it when we arrest him.”

“For what? It sounds to me like you're the criminal,” Marin accuses. “If you were one of his great Stormtrooper warriors, why would you throw that all away? He's the master of the dark and light sides of the Force—and you're just with the light. You're telling one half of the story.”

Finn pauses for a moment, considering the boy’s point. “Those who ally with the dark side have always brought pain and suffering to the ones who care about them. Always. I know you care about your father but he's hurt too many people, which makes him an extremely dangerous man.”

Marin casts his eyes low. “They probably deserved it. That's what Supreme Leader Snoke would say.”

“Supreme Leader Snoke is a bad man.”

Marin shrugs, for the first time making no comment. He doesn't feel as passionate about defending Supreme Leader Snoke’s reputation.

“It sounds like you have only been told one half of the story, too,” Finn says, filled with empathy. “I'm sure Kylo Ren cares about you very much,” Finn adds, not believing that for a second but knows Marin needs support for what is to come.

“I can't imagine what kind of conversations me and Kylo Ren are gonna have. I'm so glad you guys found me, because now I can meet him and maybe start my training. Do you think he likes hunting?”

Finn imagines Kylo Ren enjoys hunting very much. “Maybe. And maybe you could start training with me and Rey,” he suggests carefully. He has no interest in training any form of combat to Kylo Ren’s kid, but wonders what the boy thinks of the proposal.

Marin scrunches his nose. “And be a Jedi? Do you know _anything_ about the First Order?”

“Apparently you don't if you think they deserve your loyalty. Rey’s a Jedi. Do you think she should go extinct?” Finn raises a brow, pushing the boy further.

Marin is scandalized. “No! I like Rey!”

“And me and Luke? Kylo Ren should just exterminate us too, right?”

Marin narrows his eyes. “I know you're just trying to make me mad. But it won't work. I like Rey _and_ you and Luke. But I understand why you'd want to make me mad, so I'll run off and you won't have to talk to me. You'll just have to suck it up because I am here to stay.” He crosses his arms triumphantly, deciding he won the argument.

What is up with this kid? Finn scratches at something behind his ear. “Fair enough.” Hopefully Marin won't tell Rey about Finn’s ill intentions because she would probably punch him for trying to get rid of Marin. “Luke might not want you to be a Jedi anyway.”

“Good, because I don't want to be one.” Marin leers at him playfully, clearly entertained by Finn’s attempt to taunt him.

“But you could...” Finn leans in, “Now I'm not sure if this is gonna be okay with Luke, but you _could_ study the Force with us. Learn the other half of the story. Like you said you wanted to do. And you could teach us some stuff that you know too.” Finn’s not sure what the outcome of this will be, but he knows the Skywalkers like to keep their own in check. Now more than ever.

Marin’s blue-green eyes glitter with delight. “I'd like that.”

Finn smiles. “So just like that? You barely know us.”

“What are you talking about? We already did so much together! And Luke and Rey are my family. _And_ when we find Kylo Ren, we can all study the Force together and then catch furry things and _then_ we can make lightsabers.” Finn really doesn't think about the future! Good thing he has lots of experience planning. Back when the trees would catch ice, Marin had to do a lot of planning and organizing his food supply. He can show Finn that thinking ahead is a good thing.

Finn nods stiffly. “Well, when we find him, we'll talk about it.”

“Marin, are you ready to meet the rest of your family?” Rey says excitedly from the front door. “We’re going back to our base on D’Qar. You're going to meet General Organa, your grandmother. Are you ready?”

Marin stands up. “ _General_ Organa? General of what?” he asks with astonishment glittering his eyes.

Rey looks to Finn, another wordless exchange through their connection. Finn nods approvingly. “She's a Resistance general. A warrior, just like your father.” She waits for the other shoe to drop.

The boy raises his golden eyebrows high, scrunching his freckled forehead, turning to Finn. “Resistance?! I'm never gonna hear the end of this from Supreme Leader Snoke!” The Supreme Leader hasn't spoken to him in forever but surely _this_ would make him angry. The caregivers stopped visiting and giving him paper books before he fully understood the differences between the New Republic and the old one, but he knows of the Resistance and their opposition to everything the First Order is about. But if his grandmother—Kylo Ren’s mother—is in charge of any faction of it, surely they can’t be in that much of a disagreement. She’s his mother, after all.

 “So you're excited to meet her?” Rey smiles.

“Yes. I'm excited for it all!” Marin shouts. Rey laughs, a delightful noise Marin enjoys.

Before today the only voices in his mind since Supreme Leader Snoke were the noise from the trees, insects, and furry animals. But now he hears Rey’s hope, Luke’s melancholy, and Finn’s assurance.

They pile into the ship and Rey hangs back to bid her father farewell, not before scrunching her nose at Marin’s excited call to Finn. “Finn, could you show me around this thing?” he gasps, tugging on Finn’s arm. “I want to know more about the Millennium Falcon.”

Rey gives her father one of their rarely shared hugs. “Are you sure you don't want to come with us?”

Luke gives her a small, tragic smile. “There's nothing that I can do for that boy or for Leia. Besides, I have to work on lesson plans,” he smirks fondly.

“Lesson plans?” Rey parrots, smirking herself. She knows the real reason Luke wants to stay out of this, and it has nothing to do with Rey and Finn’s training and everything to do with his fear of the absorbent mind of Kylo Ren’s child.

“All the great Jedi masters had lesson plans.” Not that Luke would describe himself as great in any manner of speaking.

“You know where to find us if you change your mind,” Rey says solemnly as they part.

Luke squints out at the heavens lit sky as the Falcon makes its ascent. And so begins the next generation of powerful Skywalkers. Which way will the scale tip this time?

 

\--

 

Across the galaxy, Ren and Hux blast away from the Finalizer. Ren’s nose stings from Hux’s assault but forces himself to restrain his anger. He deserved it for his taunting, after all Hux endured. His plan probably wasn’t to be at the mercy of Phasma, same with Ren.

“Where are we going? Straight to Snoke in one of his own ships?” Hux scoffs.

“Where have you been living all this time?”

Hux looks at him dully. “Around.” Wasting away. Because of him.

“Tell me the system right now or I'll pull the information out of you,” Ren threatens.

Livid, Hux marches up to Ren’s personal space. “You're not taking me back.”

“Your place isn't here any longer. I'm going to deposit you somewhere. It might as well be your hide out. If you don't tell me where, the next charted system will be your new home.” Not quite what he'd threatened him with initially. He’s done being violent towards Hux.

“You—,” Hux starts, then levels with him. “Ren,” Hux puts his hands on his hips. “You don't need him. He's using you.”

“And you're not?”

Hux’s eyelids beat once. “I'm following your lead. Snoke’s served his purpose, and that’s to get us here. Now Phasma’s holding the First Order hostage, and the only way to get it back is to take out Snoke. You haven't needed him. Not for a long time,” he implores with an honesty he didn't know he had. His eyes drop to the humorous looking nose bandage that does nothing to help his nose’s predominance on Ren's face. “That looks like it hurts.”

“I’ll manage,” Ren says blankly.

“We can do this,” Hux says. Convincingly enough that Ren sighs, head catching up with his heart.

“Even if I wanted to, how do you suppose I could?”

“You're stronger than him,” Hux proclaims.

Ren snorts. “Flattering, but false.” The Supreme Leader could kill them with little more than a twitch of his wrist.

Prepared for a beating, Hux spawns an idea. “What about the Jedi? You can get them to do your dirty work. Give them the coordinates and wait for them to give us the—”

“You must really be desperate. This is just sad, even for you.” Ren interrupts him, looking at him like he's grown another pair of equally as scrutinizing eyes. How had Hux fallen this low?

“What's your play? You were going to drop me and then go after Phasma? The Stormtroopers she'd turned will slaughter you. You honestly think your odds are better against a thousand armed soldiers than your one master?”

Ren curls his lip. “What guarantee can you make that Phasma will follow through with her terms if we are even capable of complying?”

“It's our only shot.” Ren is like him now, alienated and without options. Why can’t he see that?

“Consorting with the enemy is beyond foolish.” Ren has yet to treat Hux’s idea with working with the Resistance as a legitimate plan.

“It's called creating an advantage. If you just tell them where Snoke is, they'll go after him! You don't have to lift a finger.”

“And if they fail, my master will become my enemy.” And there will be nothing stopping the Jedi from going after him.

“He already is,” Hux says, grave.

Holding Hux’s fierce gaze, Ren clears his throat. “I know you've always hated him for separating you from your _baby_.”

How dare he! It takes every ounce of restraint to keep himself from gouging Ren’s eyes out. “That has nothing to do with this. This is about our future. Don't you care about any of that?” Snoke cast away his very purpose, his identity left smashed to pieces. This is about revenge, and nothing else.

Ren’s face twists into a sickly smile. “You speak as if we’re together.”

Recoiling against Ren bleeding under his skin, yet again, Hux ignores him. “Just tell me where he is and I'll contact them myself. Clearly you have no interest in ever returning to the First Order.” Looks like Ren will get a taste of what it's like without power and without rank. Surely he doesn't have any inside men like Phasma had. He strikes disgust and fear within whomever he orders around.

“This is a foolish plan. He'll kill you for this.”

“Go ahead and save him the trouble, because that's the only way you'll stop me. Oh wait, we tried that once,” Hux sneers. “Maybe we can test your weakness for me again before I leak intelligence.”

Ren fixes his eyes on his, glowering with fury. Good, Hux struck a nerve. “You are nothing but a nuisance, a pest that I'm keeping alive out of pity. It would be too easy to kill you,” he spits.

Blinking twice, Hux purses his lips. “Sorry, I must have misheard you. Sounds like you're coming down with the sniffles.”

Ren scowls, his busted nose throbbing from the power of suggestion.

“Face it. There's no other choice. Tell me where he is right now.”

“Allying with the enemy isn't an option!” Ren booms. Hux must really be this spineless.

But Hux is not backing down. “Tell me! Tell me where he is!”

Ren is above going back and forth like squabbling children. “If you want him dead, find some other way.”

“Honestly, Ren. You can’t expect Snoke to keep your for much longer. You must best him. That’s the only way to truly achieve your potential as a—a Force user,” he adds, unfamiliar with the term. “And for me. This is my last chance.” For the first time in a long time, Hux regards Ren with unfettered earnestness, his heart swelling uncomfortably. “If there’s any part of you that ever…” His throat prevents him from completing his plea. He should have never fooled himself into thinking Ren could be reasonable, nor have his best interests at heart. Sighing exasperatedly, Hux scrapes his fingers through his hair.

A great wave of despair rolls from Hux to Ren’s receptivity. Compromise. They're capable of compromise. “I'll go to Snoke, but you have to stay on the ship. In orbit. The Supreme Leader will grant me guidance on how to defeat Phasma’s army. But you must stay aboard if you want to keep your head.” All threats aside, Ren would like for Hux to keep his head too.

Tonguing his bottom lip, Hux turns to Ren, projecting his tentative gratitude. “How do you know he’ll have a viable plan?”

“It’s Snoke. He’s always got a plan.” Ren begins to reprogram the navi-computer while calling out to Snoke for his coordinates.

The bond between the master and apprentice bores black with darkness.

The sensation of his fingertip against the selection of the control module is his last conscious perception of the real world before his mind is swallowed whole.

“What's wrong?” he asks at Ren’s frozen hands idling above the console.

Like a bundle of lumber, Ren topples backwards. Hux manages to catch him by his shoulders, softening his fall with his own slighter body. The sheer mass of him! Even in artificial gravity. “What's wrong?!”

Babbling nonsense in response, Ren gurgles and then ceases making any noise, save for the violent scuttle of his six and a half foot tall body trembling in seizure.

“Fuck, Ren.” What's wrong with him? Ren continues to thrash until blood oozes from his nose. His eyes settle wide, unfocused and corpselike. Frantically, Hux fingers his pulse. It beats faintly with life.

The navi-computer resets with no destination in its log. All that remains to be heard around the shuttle is the thrum of the ship's life support systems, and Hux’s labored breathing. With his head cradled in Hux’s lap, Ren manages small, nasally breaths. Inaudible but show Ren is still alive.

“What did you do?” Hux pleads to Ren’s bloodless face, expression pulled in a soundless scream. He props Ren's head to the side lest he swallows his own tongue.

The vacuum of space echoes around their borrowed Order vessel, Ren’s warmth a pinprick of life that he can focus on with his meager Force-sensing skills.

Why does Ren choose to abandon him when he needs him the most?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Here](http://ballvvasher.tumblr.com/post/152031855144/beholdthe-kylux-gayby-as-imagined-by-me-from-my) are a few character designs I came up with for Marin, whose name has a special meaning that will later be revealed :D
> 
> And yes, Mara Jade from the Extended Universe is Rey's mother in this fic!!! If Luke isn't Rey's real father in Ep 8 I will just die ;_;
> 
> A big, Starkiller-sized thank you is in order to all the awesome feedback and kudos :) thank you for reading!!


	5. Chapter 5

 

“Where’s the best place to pee?” Marin asks Finn innocently as they beam through hyperspace to D’Qar.

Finn feigns contemplation, overdramatic for comedic effect. Rey begs him with her eyes to spare the child any humiliation. Though humiliation doesn’t seem to be one of Marin’s many colorful emotions. “Hm, well there was this amazingly quiet refresher on Starkiller Base. You know, way back when. Since I was a sanitation expert nobody knew it was there except me. So I had all the time I wanted to do my business. There was a window to the outside, too. Too bad it’s completely destroyed. It was really peaceful,” Finn shrugs.

Rey stands, guiding Marin to the back of the Falcon. “I’ll take you to the toilet. Finn’s just being silly. Here we are.”

“A whole room for this! I remember reading about these. I think I can figure it out. Thanks, Rey,” Marin grins, inspecting the spout and basin.

Rey shakes her head, relating all too well to the wonder of experiencing the things you can only dream of or read about—like something as simple as a refresher.

The Millennium Falcon is welcomed back to D’Qar during their hemisphere’s nighttime cycle. Rey had already informed General Organa of the truth, that her son has abandoned his child to fend for himself on some nameless planet. Over the comm she was met with the general’s astonishment and ever-present levelness, cast in the shadow of dread. A fitting reaction. Rey knows not what further misfortune lies before the boy.

“Don’t wonder off. There will be a lot of people and some individuals like Chewie who aren’t human and you have to promise not to freak out,” Rey advises Marin. “And no shouting.”

“I can manage,” Marin nods.

As soon as they dock, Marin looks at them with wide green-blue eyes. “Can I hold someone’s hand?” he mumbles, confidence disintegrating. “There are so many lifeforms here. I’m afraid.” Marin hardly feels fear, other than the time two humans landed on his planet that short while ago, and when Supreme Leader Snoke stopped talking to him. That really hurt his feelings and made him scared no one would ever talk to him again. Now there are way too many blips of firelight life around him. Perhaps he’ll get used to the fire soon.

“Of course.” Rey’s closer so she holds his tiny hand. His palm is bumpy with scars like the backs of his hands and arms.

Marin exhales and they enter the base as a unit, careful not to draw any more attention to themselves than Skywalkers and Wookiees already do.

General Organa is there in the doorway, fully dressed for her work day and every hair in place as if she hadn’t slept a wink. She smiles at Rey and Finn, and of course Chewbacca, and kneels low to Marin. He’s grinning shyly but she can’t bring herself to do the same, her aged heart wrought with grief. The boy’s easy smile reminds her of Han and for the son she’d lost. From before the fall of the Empire to the defeat of Starkiller, she weighs heavy with the burden of time, old and exhausted.

“Marin, is it?” General Organa asks gently.                                 

“Yes. You’re a general?” Marin tries to gain her affection. He senses the downcast of her firelight, somber and cool. Sorrowful. Hopeful.

General Organa flicks her eyes to Rey’s, then back to Marin. “I am. Are you planning on staying with us?”

“I didn’t think I had a choice. But I really like these people.”

 Marin’s senses are bombarded with General Organa’s powerful projection of unbridled hope. His eyes boggle when she grips his tiny shoulders carefully. “There is always a choice.”

He doesn’t really know what to say to that, so he settles on pointing his finger in proclamation. “In that case, I choose to stay.”

It’s then that General Organa smiles brightly, light from the stars catching in her eyes. “That’s good to hear.”

 

\--

 

The hours pass along painfully slow, and Ren remains incapacitated, Hux’s only companion floating in the infinite abysm of space. Silently, he pleads for Ren to wake up. He doesn't have a single clue what's wrong with him. Hux’s hand moves without his consent when it steals a pass through Ren’s dark hair.

He's long since tugged Ren's eyes closed with his palm as one would a fallen soldier. If it weren't for the tremors that wrack his body every few moments Ren would appear to be in slumber, napping on the job.

“If you can hear me,” Hux wavers, “know that it's gonna take a lot more than a dilapidating stroke to change my mind.”

On cue, Ren’s megalithic body spazzes into seizure. Is Ren hypoglycemic? Is there any medicine on board that can treat him? Hux has only the most basic of medical training.  There's no telling what could go wrong if he attempted chemical treatments. If only this vessel was fitted with a medical droid.

Perhaps Hux could get away with returning to the Finalizer for treatment, but it's more likely they'll be executed by Phasma’s mercenaries than be welcomed with open arms. While he hates her for fooling him into partnership, he's forced to admire her technique. He'd have done the same if he were capable of committing such an extravagant act of treason.

Instead, as it would inevitably always come to pass, he's trapped with Ren. Only this time Ren’s about as useless as a two hundred and fifteen pound sack of dry legumes with a precarious nose injury.

Their faces might be too recognizable for Hux to visit planetside for medical treatment, but he might not have a choice. Between the Finalizer, where Ren would be slaughtered in his fragile state, or to the closest civilized system where Hux has a bounty hanging over his head. Either way Hux is doomed so he opts to continue on their journey of reluctant partnership.

To be sure, Hux cautions several sharp slaps to Ren’s cheek. Nothing. Damn him. Time to risk his neck for Ren’s wellbeing.

There aren't any sleeping quarters on this vessel so Hux leaves Ren to sprawl on the floor. He takes another precautionary sample of his pulse. It thrums threadlike, as if Ren's dreaming of being chased by a pack of wild beasts.

With one last look at him, Hux unclips Ren’s lightsaber from his belt. Probably the only time he'll be able to do so. It’s not like he’ll need it anytime soon.

“You had better not be fucking with me,” he murmurs to himself as he programs the ship to the nearest planet. He breathes a sigh of relief. Vorzyd V, a known planet of the since passed Empire, is a suitable destination. Bounty hunters don't associate with rigid regimes. Neither do criminals like himself, but Hux only has the reputation of a fugitive, not the will to be self-destructive or the lack of good sense.

Sparing one last glance at his unconscious partner, Hux descends into the planet's atmosphere, hull of the ship vibrating with friction. He doesn't know this planet in the least so utilizes the ship's databank to tell him the best way to locate medical assistance. All of which require identification logging, but he manages to find a significantly less lawful part of Vorzyd V, a sector with hardly any access to the Republic or whatever reaches the First Order might possibly have. Hux sets the ship down in a landing field, where traders, businesspersons, and sketchy humanoids are doing the same but in no accordance with one another. Packing several blasters he activates the ship's security protection codes.

The sting of the polluted atmosphere assaults Hux’s lungs, having been accustomed to the breeze of his hideout planet beyond the Outer Rim and a lifetime breathing finely filtered air on First Order vessels. He has to find a healer, or a physician, but hopefully he’ll find a medical droid so that there will be no trouble killing it after Ren’s saved. People can be difficult to kill if they're anticipating it.

Hux stops at a busy residential center, putting on his best wary traveler face. “I need medical assistance. I'll pay five hundred credits. Can you pass that along to whoever is inside?” Hux asks a droid guarding the door.

“ _Move along,”_ orders the droid.

Against reason, Hux attempts to argue. “My friend is gravely ill. All I'm asking is for you to relay the message. I'll even pay you, too!”

A pause. “ _Move along.”_

Dammit. He hardly resorts to begging and certainly won't start now. The clouds above spatter his cheeks with a drizzle of rain. He's running out of patience.

Blinking at the daunting doors of the bustling cantina, Hux groans internally at what loathsome creatures he'll be forced to encounter while peddling for help.

When nobody immediately recognizes him Hux combs the lively space for any promising individuals, settling for the barkeep.

“Is there any way you can help me? My friend is injured. I have him unconscious in my ship not far from here. I'll pay but I'm paying for discretion.” Hux punctuates his request with several credit chips.

The barkeep towels down one of his mugs. “You wanted by the Republic?”

“No,” Hux lies, going for sincerity but ends up sounding defensive. “Please, he's collapsed and I've done all I can.” Pleading for what he wants doesn't suit him but he needs Ren alive and able.

“I might know someone who can help, brother.” Hobbling from behind his bar, he guides Hux to a table of unarmed patrons, all human. “This man needs a doctor. He's willing to pay. I reckon one of you is a professional in that sort of thing?”

“What's wrong with you?” the older woman asks with a thick accent Hux can't place.

“It's not me. It's my friend.” And that's three times now he's had to call Ren his friend.

“You pay now, whether I can fix him or not.”

Hux scoffs. “How do I know you're even a physician?” It's rare to find a human one in this galaxy.

“Looks to me you don't have much of a choice, _gunta,”_ harps the woman. He doesn't know what that word means but it's probably unkind as well as inaccurate.

Flaring his nostrils, Hux hands over almost all of his credit chips. “This should cover it.” He glares at her entourage. “Only you.”

The woman nods once, sparing a look back at her comrades. Hux is beginning to question his own methods.

They reach his ship as the rain steadies overhead. “He's back here.”

The physician curls her lip. Ren’s forehead has formed beads of sweat, his lips purple and dry. “What happened to him?” She unrolls her satchel of medical supplies.

“He just collapsed. One minute he was standing there, arguing about something stupid and then he just fell backwards without a word. And he was shaking madly.” Hux doesn't have to feign concern. Because he's very concerned about Ren's wellbeing. Who else in the galaxy is capable of defeating Snoke?

After several aching minutes of silence and minor vitality probing, the physician regards Hux with great certainty. “What ails him is internal. Not biological.”

Hux scrunches his face. “What does that mean? Can't you help him?” What a waste if his time.

“His soul is pulling away from him. I know the Force but you'll need a trained user to bring him back. No amount of treatment I can give will help.”

“How do you know this?” Of course it's about the damned Force, because it always is. “How do I know you’re not lying?”

Standing, the physician whips out a stack of adhesive patches. “You don't.” She passes the patches to Hux. “But this will balance his fluids and ensure he's hydrated. I'm afraid this is all I can do.”

Hux doesn't miss how she pulls out another tool, some kind of reading device, and connects it with incapacitated Ren. “What's that? I thought you said you couldn't help him,” Hux accuses.

“This is a First Order ship. Is it not?” the physician asks cryptically.

Lightning fast, Hux aims one of the ship's blaster rifles at her center of mass. “Get up.”

“I don't appreciate a gun to my head, General,” the physician stands.

Hux reels. “Get over here. On your knees.” She knows him! He can't leave her alive.

As fate would have it, she's the quicker draw. One burst of crippling electricity, a technology far faster than any blaster bolt, flies from an unseen emitter from her belt. Hux’s muscles contort inward, and he falls to the floor without even getting the chance to pull his trigger.

He's twitching madly in agony, riding the shocks. Vision filled with Ren’s bandaged, deathlike face.

“The Republic is on their way. A lot of people have been looking for you. You may no longer hold your title but you can never wash the blood off your hands.”

How could he be so stupid?! Infuriated, Hux scrambles for his weapon, body fighting the aftershocks. She kicks it just out of his reach so he thinks fast, brandishing his stiletto blade and stabbing her clear through the boot. Howling in pain, she kicks Hux in his jaw, threatening to dislocate it with the strength of the swing.

Shit, that's going to leave a mark. It must have been her miscalculation that he landed closer to his blaster rifle, but Hux doesn't question it. As Hux pulls the trigger she releases another bolt of electricity, sending Hux into the wall and herself to the ground, unconscious from the hit to her chest.

Hux doesn't bother to stifle a whimper seeing that Ren isn't awake to tease him for it. He'd like to think he has no care for what Ren thinks of him, but he'd be lying to himself. After all, he'd only narrowly escaped capture and death for the man. Passionate loathing is still passion.

It takes whatever energy he's got left to wrench the physician's body out the nearest port lest she be carrying any trackers. Hux crawls over to the navigation to program his exit, passing out before he can pull them to the safety of hyperspace. Must the universe be so cruel?

The physician wakes up to a crowd of frenzied humanoids. “She's alive! We need some help over here!”

Coughing, she fumbles with the shirt collar of whomever closest. “Alert the Resistance,” she pants, “the wanted criminal General Hux is trying to leave this system.”

 

\--

 

Almost nine standard years ago, Lando Calrissian had contacted General Organa in regards to a strange insurgency on Limera IV, the cruiser in his charge at the time. While surveying the Outer Rim for First Order intelligence, one of their thousands of probes picked up her “damn kid” while stranded on an uninhabited planet.

But the strangest part of it all wasn’t just the return of Ben, who she hadn’t seen in person since she sent him away, and hadn’t spoken to since the night before the slaughter of Luke’s school of young Jedi when they’d connected via comm. It was Lando’s account of the man he was with, the sinister eyed red-haired man who delivered a baby while under Resistance care. The man who claimed Ben was the baby’s other father. The man who they’d later deduced was none other than the decorated First Order officer Colonel Hux, and hardly any time later, General Hux.

The Hosnian genocide—billions of souls reunited with the Force, eras of culture gone in an instant—was an unfathomable, deplorable loss inflicted by the First Order. Spearheaded by General Hux—a tyrannical, unfeeling beast of a man, the same general who escaped execution by his own people and is likely dead, or lightyears away from the mess he made of the Republic.

People like him don’t live for very long, encroached by their darkness until it swallows them whole. Her only fear is that the same will happen to Ben, if it hasn’t already.

She’s one of the last few who still believe in Ben. Luke does, as well as Rey. But even that fact can’t unite the two women, given Rey’s completely justifiable resentment of the Skywalker twins.

And all of this, Ben’s son born from the First Order, his resurgence, she had only kept between Lando and herself. Not even Luke or Han knew, and she was prepared to take the secret to her grave.

Looking at Marin, there’s no doubt in her bones that this is Ben’s child. Growing up Ben smiled less and less but whenever he did, he did so in the easy way that Han had and identical to the way Marin is smiling now.

He may have been born from the dark side, but now’s his chance to choose his own path, away from Snoke’s venomous influence. She doesn’t know how or why Marin was brought into the universe but she knows he has the right to choose where in it he goes next.

Marin’s too giddy to sleep even though the time between dusk and dawn is best for sleeping. General Organa, his grandmother, is telling him far too many exciting stories. Rey and Finn have gone somewhere else but Marin knows they’ll be back. They didn’t promise they would but Marin just knows so. Right now he's content to snuggle against the leather chair in one of the base's common area, eating these crispy salty things General Organa gave him. She's sitting across from him in another chair and people seem to be leaving them alone while they bustle about doing their military duties. All of it is very fascinating to Marin.

“And then I told him if he ever wanted to be a Jedi he had to tell his father exactly what happened to the pilot’s chair on the Falcon. Own up to his mistakes. And let me tell you, Han Solo was not someone you wanted to tell you burnt a hole in the back of his pilot’s chair with a lightsaber crystal,” she chuckles. “Ben must’ve been about your age. Maybe younger.” Her brown eyes twinkle with nostalgia at the treasured memory.

“Ben?” General Organa must be really tired. It’s been exciting hearing about Han Solo, Kylo Ren’s father, but she’s already mixing up words and Marin doesn’t want her to feel embarrassed.

It's then that General Organa doesn't speak for a long moment. “I call Kylo Ren ‘Ben’ because that’s the name I gave him when he was born,” she admits.

“Ben is his name? That doesn't sound as cool as _Kylo Ren._ I see why he changed it, _”_ he shrugs.

She looks past Marin’s matter-of-fact confidence. “You can change your name but that won't change where you come from.”

Marin casts his eyes low, considering her wisdom.

“But,” General Organa continues, “If you come from a bad place. That doesn’t mean you have to stay there. It’s the choices you make that are the sum of who you are.”

He knows that some choices you can’t change. You can’t uncook the egg or unsink the log. Well, you might be able to but it would be difficult, and why would you want to do those things anyway? “Tell me more about Kylo Ren’s father. Han Solo. What kinds of activities did they do?”

Heart breaking, General Organa smiles. “They used to do a lot of things together. Most of all they enjoyed flying in the Falcon.”

“Where does Han Solo live? Is he around here? I'd like to meet him,” Marin asks, oblivious.

“Han passed away a few years ago.” She sinks with guilt for hiding the truth but all will be revealed in due time. Even the truth of Marin’s other parent, if there is any hard proof to her suspicions.

“Oh.” Marin has a lot of experience with dead things but never dead people. All things die. He wonders what it's like to die, if people will miss him. Kylo Ren was probably really sad when his father died. He'll be sad too when Kylo Ren dies, even if he never meets him. “Sorry.” He knows how to feel sorrowful.

“Thank you,” General Organa voices her gratitude. “How about another story?”

“Like what?” he asks.

“You tell me. What do you want to know?” she smiles. Marin is a very perceptive young boy.

“Tell me more about Han Solo.”

The general cradles her jaw with a ringed hand. What words could she use to possibly sum up Han Solo? “He was a rascal, just like Ben. A pilot. A real scoundrel. He wasn’t strong with the Force but he made up for it with wit and charm. Brave, daring, an enormous heart. Always saw people for who they really were. I miss him more every day.”

“I’m so sorry, for you and Kylo Ren. I wish I could have met him.” He loves the Millennium Falcon and would like to know how to fly it someday. Although he can barely figure out how to open doors.

“I wish you could have, too.” If only things were different.

“What about you and Kylo Ren? What did you two do before he ran away?”

General Organa adjusts in her chair. “Ben thought there was nothing in the galaxy more boring than politics, so when the Republic was reborn he didn’t want anything to do with it. But Ben and I liked to work with our hands. We would make each other gifts, mostly woven things or carved things. Like baskets. Ben and I could weave a mean basket.”

“Baskets?” Marin gasps. He’s got a million ideas on what Kylo Ren is like but he never imagined him weaving baskets!

“Yep. It teaches patience. No puzzles. Just steps one after the next until you’re done. See, Ben wasn’t as good of a mechanic as his father so he found other ways to put himself to use. Some things he made didn’t have a practical use, but sometimes the end product was the most useless thing about it.”

Marin never thought about it that way. Making things just for the sake of it. Hopefully Kylo Ren can explain more when they meet. Pondering, he scours his mind for everything he wants to know. “What about your father?”

This question surprises her. “Oh, my father was a great man. He was a senator in the Old Republic. I followed in his footsteps as a diplomat my whole life. And my mother, she was my hero. Always so supportive, even when I went through my musical phase,” she adds.

That makes Marin smile. “Music?! I don't know much about music.”

He reminds her so much of Han. But some of his features she doesn’t recognize, like the characteristic squint he makes when behaving cleverly. Her memory dredges up images of whatever information she could get on General Hux, and imagines he would have made similar expressions if he was ever caught smiling on the few video recordings she had access to.

 “Maybe I can show you sometime.” She pauses, watching Marin’s eyes squint in thoughtfulness as he goes over the details she disclosed. Taking a deep breath, she continues. “My parents raised me, but I didn't come from them. My real father was Anakin Skywalker and he was the greatest and most powerful Jedi Knight the galaxy had ever known.”

This makes Marin perk up. “So you have two fathers?”

“I guess you could say so,” she nods. Not for the first time today, she thinks of her birthmother Padmé. All that she’d learned about her came from files on the Old Republic and from Luke, which included Ben Kenobi’s extensive personal experiences with her. They were the oldest of friends.

“That's so cool. I bet they taught you all kinds of things.” How incredible it would be to have two fathers. Maybe he has another parent somewhere. Supreme Leader Snoke had only spoken of his father so he probably doesn't. It would be great, though. What would it be like to have a mother?

“My parents who raised me taught me everything in the ways of being a princess,” she says whimsically.

“A princess? You're a princess?” A princess _and_ a general? If only he could accomplish something as great.

“I used to be.” Alderaan lives on only in her heart.

“That's wild,” Marin says. Everyone he meets seems to be some important figure. He wonders how he could be of any use to any of them.

“I'm glad you're here, Marin. I sense good things for you. I sense the light in you.” She sensed the light in Ben, and still does.

“Are you a Jedi, too?” And everyone is a Jedi, it would seem! Supreme Leader Snoke never told him much about the Jedi, except that they were extinct, and pests. He was wrong about both of those things. What else was he wrong about?

“No, I never became a Jedi. But I know the Force. It was my connection with you that brought us together. I saw you running in my vision.”

“You saw me?”

“The Force showed me a path to find you. Have you ever had visions from the Force?” General Organa asks.

Marin shrugs. “Not really. Only dreams when I’m asleep.”

“And what do you dream about?”

“Lots of things.” It’s fun when he dreams of the rainy planet that he doesn't know the name of, but that's not as exciting as his grandmother's stories about being a princess, so he thinks of something else to share. “Like sometimes I'm being chased by a big, snorting monster that grumbles like Supreme Leader Snoke,” Marin snickers.

She chuckles. Marin is so innocent, not yet sullied by the oppositions in this galaxy. “Tell me more about Snoke,” she sobers.

Marin doesn't really want to talk about him, but she asked and she answered all the questions that he asked. “He used to talk to me a lot in my dreams. He told me about my father and about the Empire and the First Order. And about the Resistance and the Republic, too. He wasn't very impressed with my take on things.”

“And what we're those?”

“Well, you know. That maybe if he wasn't so mean people would want to join him. But then I realized that he just wanted to tell me what to do. I think that's what made him forget about me.” But while Marin’s glad that Supreme Leader Snoke had stopped bothering him, he found that the more time he spent alone without even a single caretaker droid to pass along a new robe or a new knife he started to yearn for the times of conversation with him. Even if it meant forcing himself to agree with his opinions.

“What made him mean?” General Organa asks, needing to hear Marin’s reasons.

Marin squeezes his little hands into fists, the puckers between his scars fading to white with the might of his clench. The same manner as Ben would when his mother reprimanded him for not cleaning up after himself or bullying his baby cousin.

“The only activity we’d do would be moving hot rocks from the fire to a pile a little ways away. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t move the rocks with my head like Supreme Leader Snoke wanted me to. Then I tried moving them with my hands and burned my hands, so badly that my skin turned black. And Supreme Leader Snoke said I shouldn’t have done something so stupid. But it wasn’t! Because I learned how to heal my hands if I concentrated really, really hard,” Marin splays all his fingers, frowns intensely and holds his breath, making his face turn red. He exhales and relaxes. “Just like that! And the burns didn’t hurt or peel anymore. They were healed. But Supreme Leader Snoke didn’t care about that and said I was weak, that it must be my faulty genetics.”

He can prove to his grandmother and to Rey and Finn that he’s useful. He may not be able to move any stinking rocks but he can make his skin unbroken and healed again—simply by willing it so! Different, not useless. He’s different.

“You’re a very remarkable young boy. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.” General Organa’s heart sinks. What suffering Marin has been through, and he’s still only a child. “Do you know why he stopped visiting you?”

“No. I was small, though. All I have in my memory of his last words with me was when he told me the First Order’s great star-eating weapon was going to be used against the Resistance. But that was a while ago. Did the weapon ever work?” Maybe she knows.

“It did, but it didn't just eat stars. It destroyed worlds. To scare the galaxy into listening to them.”

Marin sits properly in his chair. “Destroyed worlds? And people died?”

“All of the people died,” General Organa says, grave.

He can still feel the countless firelights of life around them with all his senses, even his grandmother's powerful blue one. Now that he's gotten to be able to handle the enormity of it all, he can't imagine how shocking it would be to feel a whole worlds worth of firelights going out.

Again, the conversation is steering towards moroseness. “How about we talk more about your father? I haven't told you about his first time driving a speeder. Or I should say, crashing it.”

Squatting comfortably, Marin gives his grandmother his undivided attention, excited for whatever trouble Kylo Ren is about to get into this time.

“General,” storms in one of the communications officers. She looks from the boy to the General, bowing her head so that the boy won't hear. “So sorry to interrupt. There’s been a breach on Vorzyd V. You're gonna wanna hear this.”

 


	6. Chapter 6

 

Kylo Ren has had this dream before. It plagues him like a chronic illness, riddling his bones with its degenerating affects. A relentless repetition, his mind poisons him as every experience of the dream leaves no memory of the last. An endless loop impossible to break free from.

The heated waft from the bowels of the oscillator, the unbridled fury erupting from his core. The scorch of the lightsaber in his hand.

The ending is the same every time.

Han Solo's calm hand on his cheek. The blinding blue that floods his senses as he releases Solo’s body to the pull of gravitation below.

Around him the cyclical dream blinks away.

Before he opens his eyes Ren’s fingertips feel the surface of a jagged stone. Skin pimpling from the chill of the whipping winds, he surveys his surroundings. He’s planetside, and it’s just another day of training after Starkiller’s destruction. Close to the end of day, in fact, from the telltale pale violet sky and desolate horizon line, flat except for the silhouette of distant black hills miles away. And behind him lie the stretches of field, horizon obstructed by his stone pyramids. Ren sets the stone in his hands on the ground next to several others already lined up in a near rectangular pattern. He has a lot of work to do.

Ren walks to the nearby stone quarry where he finds his materials. Most of the quarry is depleted but some sharp white stones remain, peaking from the crust of the earth. He’ll have to excavate them if they’re to be of any use.

His tasks here are simple. Take the stones from the quarry to the field to organize into pyramids until he’s exhausted his supply of stones. They pyramids may be of any size and height but Ren always makes them thirty stones long and thirty stones wide. He spends about four weeks on each one. From the look of the many pyramids erected on field before him, he’s been here for a very long time.

If Ren focuses long enough he can still feel the twanging ache in his lungs from the Supreme Leader’s abuse on his moon those several months ago, right before he was deposited here to train. Moving the rocks was a daunting task in the beginning, with his many afflictions after the destruction of Starkiller, but eventually he managed to grow used to the pain until he felt nothing at all.

He climbs down to the base of the quarry to etch away another layer for his newest structure. Imbedded in the clay he finds a layer of black stones, round and smooth as if displaced from a lakebed. Certainly impractical to function as support for his towers. Using them makes no sense to him. Hopefully Snoke won’t take any issue.

Perhaps he can leave them for the top most layers, but their roundness and blackness will stick out like a sore thumb against his towers, white and sharp in the daylight.

Ren settles on moving the rocks he’d planned on in the first place.

 

\--

 

“I hope you know you’re making me do this!” Hux growls to Ren’s expressionless features, oblivious to the vivid dreamscape swallowing Ren’s mind and soul.

The applicator of the deathswitch slips in his sweaty palms, fumbling through his fingers and to the floor.

He'd awoken to blaring sirens alerting him that their vessel is caught in a tractor beam, all controls overridden by the easily identified Resistance cruiser’s hull through their ship's main viewport. If he hadn't allowed himself to be misled by that damned Resistance snake they could have easily been blasting through hyperspace by now. It only now occurs to him that he hadn’t bothered to check her pulse in his frenzied escape. Reprehensible, sloppy work.

Hux is left with no other choice but to take out an insurance policy of his own. Wildly, he tears at Ren’s robes with his knife, maiming him with every slice. Aiming for the center of Ren’s vulnerable chest with the deathswitch applicator, Hux pulls the trigger, sealing his and Ren's fates together with the push of a button. The lethal time bomb settles in his heart, Ren's motionless body completely unable to stop its invasion.

Undoubtedly Ren will be furious he's linked them in this way, but there are still a few Resistance fighters who would rather take Ren alive for sentimental reasons. The estranged General Hux, not so much. The most difficult aspect will be making them believe that if they stop Hux’s heart, Ren's will cease to beat, too. If it turns out they believe him but care not if Ren lives, at least it’ll prevent Ren from killing him.

But he’s not even sure that will be enough of a deterrent for Ren when he wakes to find what Hux has done.

Now comes the injection of the sensor into his own heart. Hux aims the other applicator against his much bonier chest as if he were taking his own life with a saber. One deep breath and the fragment of nanotechnology stabs into him like a shard of glass. He shouts decibels over the ship's sirens.

This is the best course of action. The Jedi can bring Ren back to the land of the living just in time for them to team up with him to take down that demon Snoke. And at the very end when all is golden for the Jedi and the Resistance, he and Ren can make for the First Order and blow the Resistance all to hell.

Sounds easier in the confines of his pain addled mind. But still a viable plan.

Ren’s freshest wound bleeds idly and Hux leaves the stain there to help his cause. Heart racing, he settles on the ground next to Ren, cradling his knees in his arms. He leaves the weapons to the floor, prepared to surrender to the enemy.

Their vessel groans as the Cruiser forces them into their docking bay. Ren’s chest has already stopped bleeding from the faint rate of his heartbeat, so he agitates it with his blade, grimacing at the secondhand sensation of flesh tearing. Resistance dogs will need all the proof of his threats he’s able to present.

Hux spares Ren another glance, whose eyeballs roll about under the thin skin of his lids. It would be just like Ren to miraculously awaken from his Force-induced coma in the eleventh hour.

 

\--

 

Trapped in the depths of his own mind, Ren labors tirelessly at his stone excavating. The pyramid is nearing completion. He swabs away the sweat from his eyes with his discarded shirt, throat calling for something wet to quench it.

He finds the perfect assortment to function as the capstone of his pyramid, along with a fresh cut of grey clay to solidify the most fragile and important of pieces to the rest of his structure. This pyramid will be his most sound yet.

As he scrapes his fingers through the wall of clay, the cliff above starts funneling in a steady trickle of water. Strange. He hadn't felt the rain.

The water grows bolder, gushing over the give in the land and bombarding his face with its saline coolness. Salt water. What in the hell?

Gasping, Ren’s chest contorts in agony. As quick as it came the pain disappears, leaving him to flounder in confusion.

He growls in frustration when the salt water floods torrentially into his quarry. This can't be happening!

To his utter horror, the quarry begins to fill rapidly, showing no signs of stopping. He clamors for the top in desperation, managing to escape from the soupy hell.

Ren spits out the salt water and scans the flatness. In the distance he sees the black hills and his pyramids. But where he'd expected to see dry dirt and grasses he instead sees clear, shallow blue. As if the entire planet has been submerged in a foot of crystal water.

Feeling lost and not knowing what to do next, Ren peers into the trench that's left of his stone quarry. Perhaps he can start diving and pulling out stones that way, but he'd probably exhaust himself fighting the pull of gravity, and drown alone and in fear.

He panics. Supreme Leader Snoke will never believe this! He does it best to capture mental pictures to avoid leaving any details out for when Snoke inevitably discovers his new failure.

Maybe if he walks to the black hills he can find another quarry, one not completely under water.  However completing the height of the towers won't be as nearly as difficult as laying the foundation.

With every step, the resistance given by the water tires him, zapping away what is left of his energy. But there's nowhere to rest here so he forces himself to persevere. Thankfully his breaths are strong, inflating and deflating without its occasional agitated rattle, at least for the time being.

On autopilot, he approaches the looming black hills. He breathes a sigh of relief when he sees dry land. Sprinting, Ren makes for the beachfront, and it greets him with its pebbled support. Ren’s body quakes with his heaving breaths, muscles aching with fatigue.

It's not long before he sees he's not alone at the base of the hill. He takes five counts of breath before crawling over, pebbles digging into his knees and palms.

Ren gapes at the slumped body of someone he'd easily recognize within a mile of sight, someone he’d never expected to find here. Hux, his enemy, his comrade. A mass forms in his chest when he takes in Hux’s lifelessness. His pale face bloated from the water, his gut hanging open, cauterized from a lightsaber. He must have been dead for some time now.

How did Hux get here? Had Snoke found him so soon? Ren pulls Hux ashore, his tired bones aching dragging his dead weight. His lungs start acting up again, causing him to wheeze embarrassingly loud. But he’s the only one to hear them so he lets himself take his time catching his breath. Ren doesn't know what to do, so he sits, hearing nothing but white noise and his own raspy breaths.

He looks around for more signs, more answers. There are none.

 

\--

 

Rey prepares the Falcon while General Organa hurries to join. It’s not every day the Resistance captures a wanted war criminal, ex-General Hux. The same criminal that is possibly the biological father of her grandchild. The other father, that is.

“Why can’t I come with you? I promise I won’t get in the way,” Marin pleads. They’ve only just begun their time together. She can’t leave him now.

General Organa puts a hand on Marin’s shoulder. “It’s not safe for you on the cruiser. I promise you’ll get to travel to other places, but for now, stay. Please?”

“But…Rey, Finn, and Chewie get to go with you. I’m not gonna cause any trouble. I’m more mature than Kylo Ren was,” Marin argues. And even R2 gets to, that tinny droid. Her stories from last night have really made an impact on him, humanized Kylo Ren into someone he could relate to, not just view as an ideal. “I don’t want to be alone.”

The tears that threaten to spill from her eyes glint in the dawning light. “You’re never going to be alone again. I swear. But it just isn’t safe.”

“Please, please, please, I promise I’ll stay quiet and out of the way! Maybe I can practice my healing—or not! I don’t have to! Just let me come with you,” Marin whines. He’s never whined about anything before because he’s never wanted anything as badly as he wants to never be alone again.

“We’ll keep a close eye on him,” pipes Rey from behind. “Let him come along. He promised he wouldn’t get into trouble, right Marin?” She won’t have him experience the apprehension that comes with the slightest of chances that this might be the last goodbye.

Marin stands up straight, arms plastered to his sides as if this makes him look less young and vulnerable. “Yes, I swear. I’ll keep my mouth shut, too.”

“Let’s not make promises we can’t keep,” Rey pats his head playfully.

He sees why Rey and Finn get along so well. They both like poking fun. “Wh’ do ya ‘ean?” Marin mumbles through sealed lips, playing along.

Rey giggles. “Go on. Finn’ll take you up to the ship,” she cheers, but her smile drops when she sees the graveness tightening General Organa’s face. “He’ll be alright. He won’t even have to know that First Order criminal is on board. We can’t abandon him, not now.”

The general exhales, praying Rey’s right.

 

\--

 

Hux tests the restraints, loathing how this is the second time he's been taken captive in as many days. It only took one Resistance dog to force him onto his stomach, locking his arms together behind his back.

He's in a detention cell, and not an incinerator, so he should count himself lucky. His wound from the deathswitch twinges uncomfortably from the tension in his arms. Ren should count himself lucky, too.

Ren’s probably been dragged to a cell of his own. They needed three men to lug his lifeless body out of their transport, and that was the last Hux saw of him.

The door to his cell opens. It's that pilot Dameron— Hux recognizes him from the interrogation he’d performed on him before his exile.

Poe looks up at the six foot bean-pole of a man before him. “Hey, handsome. Remember me?”

“Poe Dameron, best Resistance fighter pilot in the galaxy,” Hux says animatedly, shrugging his shoulders. “Come to take me to my execution? Prisoner escort must be beneath you, unless that’s how things operate around here. Do you and General Organa help cook the communal meals, too?”

“Funny. Commander Poe Dameron, actually. And no, we’re not homicidal maniacs like you. Most of us, anyway. You, however, I'm looking forward to seeing spend the rest of your life in a tiny, padded cell. I requested to bring you there myself.”

“What, you’re not gonna send be back to the First Order and collect the bounty over my head? Looks like you people could use it. Spruce things up a bit.” The paint is peeling off the walls. What kind of cruiser uses paint?

Poe’s lost all patience, the novelty of talking down to the criminal quickly wearing off. Hux is really that irritating. “You won’t have to worry about our hospitality for very long. I’m just here to move you to interrogation, where you’ll tell us everything we wanna know. Or face the consequences. It’s no secret we’ve captured you, so if I were you I’d be sure to keep my head down.” He shoves Hux out into the lit hall of the detention level, where a gang of Resistance guards brand Hux with their seething glares.

Hux smirks. “And if I were you, I’d be sure to post me with your most trusted guards. We wouldn’t want anything happening to General Organa’s only son.”

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean,” Poe deadpans, letting Hux run his mouth. He won’t be blabbing for very long. What does any of this have to do with Kylo damned Ren?

“Tug down my shirt.”

“Look, I’m not a particularly difficult man to woo, but given your body count you might wanna try a little harder.”

Hux stops walking all together and Dameron bumps into him from behind. “Tug down my shirt and you’ll see that I’ve injected myself with a monitor connected to a time bomb in Kylo Ren’s heart. Anything happens to me, and you’ll have to explain to Organa how you willingly let her son die.” Playing on another’s sentiment. All too easy.

“How do we know you’re not lying? Where is he?” Dameron asks, and Hux gawks at his obliviousness.

Does anyone in this damned galaxy know what Ren looks like? Maybe Hux should have taken on the masked persona. He would have certainly avoided being captured as many times as he had. “I assumed you took him to another cell, but I must have been mistaken. Might want to lock down the medbay. He might be very angry when he wakes up.”

Poe flips him around, backing him into the nearest wall. “Your hostage?” Poe demands in disbelief. He gapes, eyes focusing past Hux. They made a terrible, terrible mistake.

“You’re bluffing,” Dameron accuses, forcing Hux to keep moving, but he won’t budge.

“Care to test that theory?”

The armed guards gang around as Poe lifts his shirt, exposing his pale torso. Tugging it down by the collar would have sufficed. But sure enough, the clotted wound looks back at them. “A deathswitch,” Poe mutters, dropping his shirt back into place. This could still be an elaborate bluff, Poe thinks, but he won’t be taking any chances before they can get it looked at.

Hux smirks, satisfied. “On we go, now that we got that taken care of.”

Poe activates his ear comm. “Lock down the central medbay. Don’t ask, just do it! And get me the General on the line.”

The interrogation room isn’t much cleaner. “Face the wall,” Dameron orders. “I said, face the wall,” he repeats himself, impatient.

Leisurely Hux complies, stifling confusion when Dameron deactivates the magcuffs. Dameron marches out without another word, evidently having a higher priority prisoner he longs to attend to. Hux’s pride is bruised.

“This officially got hairier,” Poe mutters, earpiece beeping to indicate he has a call waiting. “General Organa?”

“ _Yes, Poe. We’re on our way, not far from the rendezvous point. You had urgent news?”_

Poe swallows. “It’s him. Hux’s hostage is Kylo Ren. We weren’t sure at first but we ran his genetic material through the databank.” He pauses to let the information sink in. She doesn’t answer, so he prompts, “General?”

A breath-like noise crackles through the connection. _“Affirmative.”_

“He’s been unconscious. And the medics stopped trying to wake him up when we told them who he was. In case he does wake up, we have maximum restrains but there’s a chance if he wakes he’ll be able to overpower them. So we need you here, immediately, and the Jedi. And whatever weapons you can think of that’ll work on him.”

General Organa’ sinks down on the Falcon’s passenger chair, aged knees popping. It’s time. Ben’s home. She thrums with the shock of it, relief, fear, and uncertainty rolling off of her in waves.

“What is it?” Rey’s the first to show her concern.

Marin perks up, sensing the fluctuation. In an attempt to divert his attention, Finn passes Marin more of the little spicy red candies he’d been snacking. But Marin politely declines, instead focusing on the distress from the two Skywalker women. He keeps his promise and remains silent, but it doesn’t stop him from attempting to read their projections.

“I wish I got a better night’s sleep,” the general groans, gazing contemplatively at the moving stars outside the viewport. Rey’s still looking at her for answers.

General Organa lowers her voice so that only Rey can hear. “It’s Ben. We’ve got him. And for once in my life I have no idea what to do next.”

Gaping, Rey looks to Finn. Then Marin, who looks back at her inquisitively as if he’s trying to read her thoughts. “What does this mean for him?”

“We have to tell him,” she says to Rey but more to convince herself to muster the courage. “That way we can be on guard if Ben tries anything. He’s unconscious and in restraints, but there's no telling how long it is before he starts doing anything he can to escape.”

“And if he tries something?”

The general regards Rey with unbridled despair. “We do what we have to.” It’s always been so.

When Rey and his grandmother approach him, Marin whips his head forward to Finn and shoves a handful of candy in his face in an attempt to hide his eavesdropping. “We’ve got news,” Rey starts. “Kylo Ren was one of the fugitives we captured and we’re on our way to see him right now.”

Eyes bugging out, Marin viciously chews his candies until they are suitable for swallowing so that he may speak. “Really?!”

Chewbacca growls in rage and Finn nods slowly, accepting. Preparing himself for whatever comes next.

“But you need to listen to me very carefully. He’s not well and you’ll need to give him a lot of space before you can talk to him. He could be very, very angry with us for keeping him here, and he’ll be dangerous. He doesn’t like being told what to do. Much like you.”

Marin would have never expected he’d meet his father so soon in his journey. The possibilities electrify him—all the excitement and fun and adventure they’re going to have as father and son.

Fear settles in his gut. It’s too real, too much and too soon. All this suspense and anticipation has made him extremely nervous now to meet his future Force-wielding master. What if he doesn’t smile at him like Rey does or poke fun at him like Finn does? What if he isn’t impressed with his powers, like Supreme Leader Snoke wasn’t? What if he thinks he’s dirty and weak, silly and clumsy? He doesn’t even know how to open doors or use the toilet without jumping like a startled rat. “I’m so worried,” Marin bows his head.

“We all are,” General Organa laments.

“But if he’s sick, maybe I can use my powers? Remember, Grandmother, the ones I told you about?” Perhaps he can earn Kylo Ren’s respect that way, show him firsthand how capable he can be.

“Maybe, but for now we have to take every precaution he won’t lash out at you. Do you understand?”

Marin nods somberly. “I understand.” He too was afraid when he met all these new people, his family. If Kylo Ren is afraid of him, he’ll just need some time to adjust.

He grabs for Finn’s hand when they dock into the bay of the much larger cruiser. Marin’s never been in something this huge before and he can’t contain his astonishment at the lights and the action.

“General,” Poe Dameron salutes from across the way, along with four guards. “This way,” he nods, smirking at Finn because he can’t help himself. Hold up. “Who’s the kid?”

That man looks like he’s some kind of Resistance hero. “I’m Marin,” he introduces, though he doesn’t know why this heroic man would care.

“I’ll explain everything after I see him,” General Organa pleads and together they hastily walk to the medbay level, approaching six other guards who all salute their general. “Finn,” General Organa starts, and Finn nods, prepared to hold back Marin if he needs to. Chewbacca, blaster primed, and the two Skywalkers make for the sealed off medbay.

“Let’s wait out here for the general to come back. Then we’ll decide what to do next,” Finn says.

The boy doesn’t say anything and stares down the hall, squinting curiously at its depths. “Marin? You okay?”

Marin doesn’t answer, just peers like he’s looking through the layers of durasteel walls with x-ray vision. “What’s down that way?” he asks, completely uncaring that the father he spoke way too much about these past two days is almost in front of his nose.

“The detention level,” one of the guards confirms. “There’s only one prisoner, though if you ask me he doesn’t look like he could last long in a fight.”

There’s a different kind of firelight life behind the many walls. Marin can’t look away from its source, drawn to its intensity.

“We should steer clear of that area,” Finn advises. “Remember how you said you were gonna listen?”

Snapping out of his spell, Marin squints up at him. “Yes, I remember,” he scoffs.

“Good,” Finn nods. Not for the first time he exhales, wrought with uncertainty of the fate of Kylo Ren’s child.

General Organa crosses her arms, taking in all the features of her son she recognizes, now matured with adulthood. His perpetual frown that weighs down his face even in sleep, his speckles of beauty marks, his richly dark hair.

“Remove anything that can be used as a weapon. Immediately.” Chills blanch her, envisioning his lids flying open in fury, the manacles snapping off, blood spatter striping the walls.

She files away the features she doesn’t recognize, like the scar that cuts his face in two as Rey described she inflicted on him during their last battle, the enormity of his musculature under the thin medical gown, mutilations on his knuckles and the callouses of an aging laborer.

“We’ve managed to start the healing to his chest and his broken nose, and the burn on his neck. The foreign body his captor injected him with is most certainly unmovable due to the nature of the trigger. There’s too much risk. But he still remains under and hasn’t responded to any stimulants or therapies—we don’t know why or how of if this is related to the trigger. Although after Commander Dameron told us who he was, we sort of stopped trying to wake him up. No offence,” says a medic, who shakes in his boots as he rattles off more medical information.

“Thank you,” General Organa is the first to speak. She looks to Rey, whose eyes burn with a glare at Ren.

Defenseless, incapacitated, and bound by magcuffs on each appendage, lays the man who killed her mother, cast her to a life of squalor in the desert, and caused her closest friends and family irreparable suffering and loss. A dark, private part of her wonders how many lives would be spared if they were to pump his blood with a lethal injection where he’d peacefully die in his sleep. But execution isn’t the way of the Jedi and certainly not the way of her own moral code. A code she’d forged growing up on Jakku, avoiding the corrupt trading posts and nomadic herds of criminals as much as she could.

 _You can let yourself feel the anger,_ her father told her once. _The Jedi’s myth says we should force ourselves to stifle it. But experiencing it is the only way you’ll learn to accept what’s happened and to forgive yourself and others who’ve hurt you._ If only it were that easy.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I Inceptioned Kylo lmaooo but it's for a really really meaningful reason. His dream begins as his flashback to Han Solo's death and then to his flashback at his training after Starkiller (after he already let Hux go and after Snoke punished him by hurting his lungs [bc Snoke is a punk bitch]). 
> 
> If you are confused about what's dream and what's real life feel free to ask for clarification :) I tried my best to make it clear without being too redundant. And I apologize if this chapter had too many scene changes. This is one of the only chapters that have this effect, for timing and pace purposes. I'm so excited that things are taking off now yaaass, thank you guys for reading!!!


	7. Chapter 7

 

 

Kylo Ren’s eyes roll beneath his lids, buglike and frenzied. Rey holds her breath, preparing to use lethal force against him if she has to. But the time to defend herself never comes, only the infinitesimal hastening of his heart rate monitor.

Knowing she’d likely never get the chance again, General Organa lays a cool palm on her son’s forehead. Rey takes her other hand with her own, adding a link of positive energy. As if the sheer force of will could bring Ren from the cusp of self-destruction.

 

\--

 

In his mind, Ren sniffs at the wind. Tears prick at the faint stench of wet rot from Hux’s body, lying there unburied and inviting for decomposing lifeforms. His heart sinks, shrouded by numbness.

The sounds of two lightsabers hum in the distance behind him. Distinct, unmistakable noises that he hadn’t heard in all his months of training. He spares one last look at Hux, those white teeth glinting from the bloated seam of his lips, that tangle of red haphazardly strewn against his forehead, a hint of a pale collarbone from beneath his clothes. His chest aches, marching towards the noise.

He's unarmed and would need to commandeer a weapon if he's to defend himself, but he isn't thinking about himself at all. He's thinking about the scorched maw of Hux’s abdomen, and the pale skin that will never again be able freckle in the sunlight.

At the bottom of the hill he sees two figures in the midst of battle, one green lightsaber and one blue. As Ren focuses, he can see the distinct bobbing hairstyle of the scavenger girl with her green lightsaber and the brutish way FN-2187 flails his blue lightsaber, like a club.

They are sparring, free and jovial. Perhaps in celebration of slaying the fallen General Hux. Rage renewed, Ren shouts at them, a wild noise to warn them of their impending demise.

They don’t appear to have heard or cared, and continue to spar like there’s nothing else to be done.

Clamoring down the steep hill, Ren sees what would appear to be a jumping little boy, dirty blond hair whipping in the breeze. FN-2187 hands him his deactivated saber hilt, and the little boy turns to look Ren right in his eyes from the approximate hundred feet distance separating them.

Oafishly, Ren stumbles, sodden boot snagging on a divot in the hillside. There’s nothing stopping him from tumbling down the hill, its rocky face marring his exposed skin with every flip. An eternity later, he lands on the base of the hill sprawled on his back. One broken arm, copious scrapes and bleeding abrasions. He’d even bit through his tongue.

Ren blinks up at the sky, burning violet to mark the day’s closing. He lolls his head to where he’d seen the scavenger and the traitor and the jumping little boy, but he only sees the flatness between the hills. Nothing indicates they’d been here in the first place.

Seconds, minutes, hours bleed on. He’s on the cusp of passing out from his injury when he hears the patter of distant running behind him. Desperately, he cranes his neck backwards to see the source of the noise. The nerves along his spine twinge with the movement and he groans around the blood clotting on his tongue, coughing violently around the dribbles of blood pooling in his throat.

“Oh no, oh no. What happened?” gasps the source of the footsteps.

Ren makes out a swish of blond-brown hair. It’s that jumping little boy that was frolicking with the traitor and the scavenger.

“Don’t try to move! For crying out loud,” reprimands the boy. Sounding just like someone else he knows would scold, someone dead and rotting on the beach behind the hill.

Two little hands cradle his head in place, and Ren garbles around his tongue injury in protest.

“I said, _don’t move_.” Something about his copious injury and the authoritativeness in the boy’s voice makes him comply.

A shrill pain unlike anything he’s ever felt before lances through his skull, and he gapes in awe at the force of it, unable to do as much as scream. As quickly as it came, the pain disappears, and his body vibrates with a golden haze of calm. 

“Now we don’t have to explain to Father how you fell down the hill again.”

Ren looks down at his hands and arms, his spine without so much as a pinch, the fractured bones of his arm completely healed, skin streaked with blood but no longer broken, save for the thin white lines where blood had been oozing. He snakes his tongue around his mouth, finding it healed too.

Violently, he gets to his feet, and flips around to wrench the little boy by his arms. “Who are you?” Ren growls, gripping the child hard enough to bruise.

“You must’ve bumped your head pretty hard. We should probably watch you while you sleep,” retorts the boy, not an ounce of fear in the blues and greens of his eyes.

“Where did they go?” Ren tosses the boy aside, glaring at the span of hills around them.

“What? Where did who go?” exasperates the boy. “Looks like not even I can save you from getting in trouble. You’re acting like a loon again.”

“The two rats you were playing with! The scavenger and the traitor!”

“I wasn’t playing with any rats!” the boy throws his hands in the air. “I guess some things can’t be healed. Like your _scrambled egg brains_ ,” he mutters under his breath.

Ren curls his hands into fists. The nerve of this little brat. “What did you just say to me?”

“Nothing!” shouts the boy, straightening his back. Without another word, he sprints off between the hills towards a forest of evergreens, a black pillar of smoke rising behind it.

Ren chases after him, but the boy is lightning fast, dodging the trees like a gazelle.

“You’re getting slow, old man!” shrieks the boy giddily from up ahead.

Infuriated, Ren slings some of the littered stones with a wave of Force energy, to which the boy misses getting pulverized by a hair.

“No cheating!” shouts the boy, as if this is some kind of game. Ren will teach this punk exactly what consequences his larking will result in. Another wave of energy flies toward the boy, barely making him stumble as if Ren had blown him with a fan, and the boy chuckles in delight. Ren growls. Is it the boy’s powers or his, somehow dwindled in his perpetual exhaustion?

The boy’s run so far ahead out of his sight path that he slows to a jog, wanting to get to the destination already.

“See, look! I beat him,” the boy taunts as Ren breaks through the trees.

Ren gapes at the person the boy’s talking to. It’s Hux, cheeks tanned, nose freckled, lips pulled into a smirk. The boy flips around to smirk at him too, eyes glittering identical to the way Hux’s do.

“What the fuck?” Ren breathes. Utter bewilderment.

“Lost your shirt again? You’re a terrible influence,” Hux chides, carding his fingers through the boy’s sandy hair.

Ren paces closer. “I saw you. Lying dead in the water,” he grates. Hux is alive, healthier and more cordial than he’s ever seen him.

“He had a bit of a fall.” The boy raises his brows to Ren in a fashion that says ‘you’re a little crazy.’ “I took care of him, like always,” the boy nods up at Hux.

Sparing a glare down at the boy, Ren ignores his trifling comment in favor of scanning the expanse of wilderness.

Around them spans a lake, possibly formed by the impact of a meteor from its central placement in the black hills. A large bonfire licks a tower of logs with its flames, and directly behind it are a stone wall and a large hole of a cave. A parked transport spans down the shore.

Not just any transport. A Corellian freighter. The unmistakable hull of the Millennium Falcon. Ren ogles the ghost ship, memories of the death of Solo’s only son charging a fraught confusion. It looks to have been there for a while, the landing shields set deep into the pebbles of the lakeshore.

“What is this?” Ren growls, at a complete loss as to what’s happening.

“Go finish the reading assignments I had planned for you,” Hux bends to lay a kiss atop the boy’s head. The boy scampers off to the cave that illuminates with installed lighting upon his entry.

Reading assignments? “What _is this?”_ Ren repeats, enunciating so that Hux will answer this time.

“From how high did you fall?” Hux moves his hand to pet Ren’s head, but Ren swats it away, gripping his thin wrist.

“How did you get here? Did you come on that ship? Why?” How could Hux be so foolish to track him down after narrowly escaping execution? And the two Jedi thieves that he saw up on the black hills—he flounders to make sense of this. “Are you with them? Did they capture you? The scavenger and the traitor?”

Hux rips his hand from his, disallowing the rough anchor of Ren’s touch. “ _We_ came here. All three of us. We escaped. It was your idea, remember?” Hux looks from one eye to the other, smiling consolingly.

Ren swallows. “That boy. Is he…?” _Is he our child? The same child I forced you to bear, who I stole away from you and surrendered to Snoke?_

Hux’s smile drops, rolling his eyes. “I’m not dealing with this. _Your son_ and I have work to do. Let us know when you’ve restored your sanity.” Hux marches toward the cave with no more explanation.

All the training in the world couldn’t have prepared Ren for this encounter. How does he have no memory of this place, of running away with Hux and their bastard child he’d last seen as an infant when he delivered him to a horde of droids? There is no way this is anything more than a psychotropic hallucination.

Ren sniffs his fingertips for any residual stains from the Felucian hemp he’s rolled and smoked in the past, but no such scent greets his nose.

He looks out at the lake. The wind cards its fingers through his hair and tantalizes his ears and nostrils with its chill. He’s never been trapped in such a vivid, nonsensical dream. One where Hux assigns readings like a school teacher to the child Ren had forced him to bear, the child he had dutifully surrendered to the Supreme Leader. The next logical course of action would to revisit that beach with Hux’s corpse to escape whatever rabbit hole he’d fallen into.

But on this side of the hills, Hux cheeks are freckled instead of pale and bloated. His lips tug into an easy smirk instead of hanging open, purpled with death and blackened with congealed blood. His wrist warm in Ren’s fingers, pulse point thrumming with life.

Ren opts to investigate the campsite for more answers. There’s what looks to be a hammock attached around an evergreen tree and a metal post, the path to it beaten with both big and small footprints.

Around the parked freighter—the Falcon—there a few footprints but not as many as there are at the hammock or the mouth of the cave. Casting a glance back to where Hux and that boy ran off to, Ren activates the boarding ramp, walking aboard.

Like something out of a dream, the Falcon greets him with its jaundiced lighting. He hasn’t been on board this ship since Starkiller. It feels different without the restriction of his mask barring the scent of crackling duraleather and electrical fizz. Because he can’t help himself, Ren enters the cockpit.

He powers up the dashboard, familiar with the controls. Knowledge from a past life. Its array of monitors and controls ignite without any hindrances. Just as he remembers, save for the thin layer of dust against the panel from the disuse. Ren stripes his finger through the pulverulent surface, disrupting the evenness. He’s seen enough.

Ren walks back out and waits by the fire for Hux to emerge, restraining from doing something just to get his attention. Hux is with the boy. As much as he wants to speak with Hux—the jumps in time, pollution of his memory, the counterfeit taste of this place—Ren has no desire to converse with that boy.

The violet sky deepens, shining bright with the array of starts and the swirling tilt of galaxy surging like the tide. Ren finds a bedroll tucked by a boulder next to the blazing bonfire, and he lays it out as his body calls for comfort, indulging in the strange rightness of it all. He stares into the fire, hypnotized into complacency, ears straining towards the two faint voices of man and child emanating from the lit cave.

“I knew you were moody, but I didn’t think you’d opt to take the couch,” pipes Hux from behind.

Ren inhales sharply, sitting up. He’d fallen asleep.

Now Hux is here, sitting next to him on a bedroll of his own. Looking at him with what he can only be described as adoration. No one’s ever looked at him like that, least of all Hux. This must be an elaborate hallucination.

“I don’t understand,” Ren tells him.

Hux replies with another bright smile. Beautiful, free. So unlike him that he’s unrecognizable. “I brought you a present.”

“Okay,” he says, struck dumb.

The small bucket with soapy water sloshes between them. “Your arms and face are still caked with blood. Must you be so messy? You know he looks up to you.”

Ren swallows. “Does he?”

“Of course.” Hux drags the soapy rag over his arms, abrading away the blood. Ren lets him. It was beginning to itch anyway. “You’re the warrior, the adventurer. I’m the one who gives him homework.”

Heart leaping, Ren braces himself against Hux ministrations to his neck and jaw. Around Ren’s nose and cheekbones, his early-onset frown lines, the short beginnings of a beard, the cut of his jaw, across his scar and again in that order.

“I—”

“Sh, don’t worry about it. How’s the head?” Hux pets him, gentle fingertips like dribbles of warm spring water rolling down his scalp.

“I’m having a hard time deciding what’s real and what isn’t,” he admits. It’s one of the most honest things he’s ever said.

“Well, why don’t I help clear it up for you,” Hux murmurs, craning himself low for a tender kiss.

Ren stiffens. His lips fumble, inept, as if it’s been an eternity since they’ve been kissed. When was the last time? Was it the kisses shared isolated from the expanse of the galaxy, on the run from some lofty enemy with their bastard child hiding somewhere?

If they’ve been on the run for the last few days, weeks, months, there would have shared many kisses as these. But this feels so new, but apparently not to Hux who without inhibition pets to his cheek and jaw. He thumbs the scar on his face, and Ren recoils to find it’s healed to a thin seam, no longer a trench like he’d remembered from before.

“Don’t worry,” Hux pulls back, sensing his distress, “I tucked him away for bed. I’m getting pretty good at this,” Hux smiles. Ren dips forward for another kiss, more heated than the first. The light prickle of stubble from Hux’s chin compounds to the quickening of his heartbeat.

Ren looms over him, electrified as if these intimate acts are forbidden. But who can forbid them? There’s not a lifeform that knows they’re here. If there were any, surely they would have come for them by now.

Hux sinks back into the bedroll, wrapping his legs around Ren’s hips, enthusiastically accepting each delve of Ren’s kisses. Humming contently Hux palms Ren’s bare chest, exploring the musculature beneath his skin. “I don’t know how you keep so fit after all these years,” Hux chuckles into his mouth.

His physique must have developed from his time here with Hux and the boy and not from his pyramid building, because the timeline doesn’t make sense. The building must have been a flashback, a dream, just a bad fucking dream like all his other dreams, like Solo’s hand on his cheek and Hux lying dead in the water.

Because now, the present, Hux is lying open for him under the swirl of stars and the kiss of the firelight, kneading at his skin an anointing him with precious, perfect kisses.

Ren replies with a mouth to Hux’s neck, nipping and tugging at flesh until Hux whimpers with earnest pleasure. Just like how he remembered.

Hux fumbles for the clasps of Ren’s shorts. “C’mon, I want it like this tonight. I want it hard. Really hard,” Hux pants, reaching behind himself for something once Ren’s cock springs free.

“Like what?” Ren whispers in complete puzzlement.

“Oh, you’re gonna make me beg for it?” Hux smiles. He grips Ren’s hair, wrenching Ren to look him in his dilated eyes. “Kylo Ren, master swordsman, dutiful father, loyal and devoted partner, will you please do me the honor of fucking me with that monstrous cock of yours?”

Swallowing around a lump in his throat, Ren’s hands shake as he frees Hux from his trousers. He must have hit his head really fucking hard if he can’t recall ever fucking Hux in his ass before. Hopefully muscle memory will kick in. Narrowly ripping them off by the seams, Ren renders Hux bottomless, too eager to fulfill Hux’s demands to bother with his shirt. In his effort he knocks the soapy bucket over, its contents seeping into the stone beach. Hux chuckles lightly at his frenzied clumsiness.

Hux passes him the tube of lubricant and Ren squirts a pump of it on his fingers. Ren bends down to mouth at Hux’s growing hardness, Hux widening his thighs in bliss. Heart ricocheting within his chest, Ren rubs a finger to the seam of Hux’s ass, gently grazing his hole with his fingertip.

“Don’t be a tease,” Hux gasps, urging Ren on with a clawed hand to his hair.

Encouraged, Ren sinks two fingers into him. Hux wriggles his thighs in anticipation. Ren sinks in a third, pulling out and back in until Hux resumes his whining. Satisfied Ren pulls out his hand, dripping more lubricant onto his waiting cock.

The wind picks up, and Ren pulls one of Hux’s golden-haired legs over his shoulder, using to other hand to anchor himself into Hux. He chokes down a string of whimpers as he slowly, achingly bottoms out into the impossible tightness of the open man underneath him. Hux worries his lip with his teeth, but Ren counters it with a kiss that’s mostly tongue, lapping away the beads of blood.

“How’s this,” Ren husks, releasing Hux’s leg into a less pretzel-like contortion.

“Gods, you’re enormous. How do you lug that thing around,” Hux groans, pushing down onto him with his narrow hips.

Ren can’t speak. He can only surrender himself to the pleasure, plunging in and out with haste. None of his inexperience seems to matter to Hux, who angles himself just so, bliss brightening his features. His hips already start to cramp but Ren powers through the discomfort, chasing the high he’s sharing with Hux.

He bows his head low, pressing his forehead to Hux’s humming throat. A log crackles in the bonfire, sending a stream of embers to join the collection of stars above.

The warm spring water dribbles of Hux’s fingers tantalize his scalp, urging him higher to seal their lips together. Hux whines when Ren gets the idea to tug his cock, trembling from the added sensation. “Oh, just like that,” he cries, red hair bouncing with every one of Ren’s maddening thrusts.

When Ren comes he loses control, stumbling forward and abrading his palms on the stones above the safety of the bedroll, coming deep inside Hux where his seed has little hope of escaping.

In his blind release he overlooked how Hux had come too, from the flutter of his channel and the telltale gasps marking his completion. Ren’s brow pinches. He feels at loss, like he missed out on an eclipse of a sun that only can be seen once every hundred years.

Hux doesn’t seem to mind. “I could do it like that every night,” he murmurs when he catches his breath, cradling his jaw for a warm kiss.

Ren doesn’t know what to say, entirely too overwhelmed from their lovemaking, so he pulls out and lies atop Hux, squeezing his middle with his two muscled arms. He turns his cheek to the skin of Hux’s abdomen, getting the angle just right to see the minute difference of properly healed scar tissue. Smooth and shiny in the fire light, Ren confirms the texture with his hand. He’s done this before in reality or a dream, and can’t decipher if the action is a memory or a fantasy of one.

Hux pets his head again, allowing Ren’s close scrutiny of his surgical scar. Knowing Hux he would have put up a fight the first time Ren would have tried this. His memory must serve him correctly, so he lets himself run his fingertips along the line, watching intently at the small back and forth motion until his eyes close.

 

\--

 

Rey sits outside of the sealed off medbay, watching Poe and General Organa deliberate heatedly with several other officers about the Republic’s new prisoners. Marin is squatting next to her, staring past the walls. _What’s he doing?_ she sends to Finn through their link, who’s crossing his arms at the hushed debate of their superiors.

Finn turns around, weary. _I dunno. The only thing that’s down there is the detention level_ , Finn replies.

Marin’s golden brows pinch in focus, as if he’s trying to decipher one of the difficult picture puzzles his caretaker droids used to give him. Maybe if he concentrates long enough, he’ll be able to figure out what’s strange about the firelight behind those walls.

Mouth thinning into a line, Rey passes on her projection of trepidation. _I’ve don’t feel so good about this, Finn._

 _You and me both,_ he agrees.

“Marin, let’s go sit somewhere where we don’t have to worry about getting trampled,” Finn suggests, patting Marin on his head.

Coming out of his spell again, Marin shrugs. “Okay.” He can wait to see Kylo Ren until Rey and his grandmother say it’s suitable. He trusts their judgments. They have yet to give him a reason not to.

But the firelight behind those walls is too intriguing to ignore. He focuses on its strange, warm familiarity, bright even as Finn ushers him farther away from it.

Rey retreats back into the medbay to make sure Kylo Ren is contained. She's been reaching out with her keen senses every few moments but would prefer to have a look for herself.

She comes to find Ren alone as they'd left him, heart monitor beeping steadily. All is as they left, except for a pillow placed over his waist.

“What's that for?” she asks the medic sweating over a computer.

The medic swallows, looking like he wants to be anywhere but here. “It might be his condition or a reaction to one of the drugs we gave him to aid his healing. He seemed to have gotten— oh how do I put this…”

“Gotten what?” Rey asks, her concern making her lose her careful patience.

“I just didn't want to look at it!” exclaims the medic.

“Look at—oh,” is all Rey can say, grimacing in realization. Most of the workings of the human body are still a mystery to her.

The medic swipes at his forehead with the sleeve of his work clothes. They don't pay him much if anything at all to deal with sleep induced erections of mass murders. But he supposes this is all a part of the good fight against tyranny.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kylo gettin lost in Hux's tight ass... talk about predictable, kylo!!! lbr we would all lose our grip on reality in that ass ;(
> 
> again, please let me know if anything relating to the dream sequences are unclear. as for the question of the meaning of the dreams--we will find out! thanks for reading and commenting :)


	8. Chapter 8

Kylo Ren has had this dream before. It plagues him like a chronic illness, riddling his bones with its degenerating affects. A relentless repetition, his mind poisons him as every experience of the dream leaves no memory of the last. An endless loop impossible to break free from.

The heated waft from the bowels of the oscillator, the unbridled fury erupting from his core. The scorch of the lightsaber in his hand.

The ending is the same every time.

Han Solo's calm hand on his cheek. The blinding blue that floods his senses as he releases Solo’s body to the pull of gravitation below.

Around him the cyclical dream blinks away.

“Father,” comes a whisper in his ear. “Pst,” A shove to his shoulder.

Ren rolls over on the bed roll, opening his eyes to meet the eyes of the source of the whispers.

“Today's the day. Here, have some breakfast.” The little boy shoves a ration bar in his face, the block missing a tiny bite. “I sampled it. A tax for making me wait so long.”

Sitting up, Ren blinks out at the flat calm of the lake, the hushed fire, the green-blue eyes of the kid who he wanted to kill yesterday. Was it yesterday? He can't be sure. Why did he want to kill him? He can’t remember.

“Where's Hux?” he asks gruffly, not taking the offered ration bar.

“He's inside reading. You both fell asleep out here by the fire again, but he came back inside to wake me up and do our morning exercises. Which you slept through. _Again_ ,” the child complains, as if this is just another day in their peaceful home life.

Ren thinks of the hushed voices of lively debate from the cave last night, the footprints around the hammock, the selection of bed rolls by the fire. Hux’s hand in the boy’s hair, the ease in which he laid a kiss there, the twin green gazes and identical patterns of freckles. This is just another day in their peaceful home life.

“What do you two read about?” Ren finds himself asking.

“Stories and old texts. I like them both. Some of the texts about the Empire sound like fairytales but he says they are all factual,” the boy says, taking another bite of Ren’s breakfast. “Now that's another tax for stalling. You promised today would be the day.”

Ren frowns. “The day for what?”

“To make my lightsaber!” he exasperates. “I can’t believe you forgot again.”

Gut sinking, Ren clears his throat as if the action could shake loose his anxiety. “Maybe another day.”

“No, no. You said that last time. Come on, I know where you hide your tools.” The boy runs off to the Falcon.

Grimacing at the boy's giddy retreat, Ren walks to the cave instead, where the boy said Hux was reading. He's not even five paces from the entrance when he hears Hux’s faint reprimand from inside. “Don't even think about it. You're done keeping him waiting.”

Ren stops in his tracks. He could do whatever he wants, in theory. He always had. But he chooses to comply with the whims of the two posh accented, green eyed orators. If not to avoid getting scolded, he doesn't know the reason why.

When Ren climbs aboard he finds the boy in the common area rummaging through one of the crates he easily recognizes as his own. He can’t recall how it got on the Falcon but he’s sure it’ll come to him later. Ren allows the boy to prod at his tools because he knows everything in there is without any use to untrained hands.

“We may need some solder,” the boy calls to Ren without turning around. “Your breakfast is over there, by the way.”

Ren takes the ration bar from atop another crate, chewing into the bites already taken from it.

Finishing the bar, Ren peers over the boy’s shoulders. His little hands poke curiously at the lightsaber parts and Ren bends to pull out a small locked case underneath the layers of spare parts and hilts. Inside the case reveals the collection of solder and soldering tools.

“Oh. Good,” agrees the boy. “What about crystals?”

Ren slides the top level of the case to the side, displaying his harvested lightsaber crystals embedded in the betaplast foam beneath.

“Woah, where did you get so many?” the boy asks.

Each crystal is colorless but once put to use will emit either blue or green, a representation of each individual Jedi he'd slain decades ago. Kept locked away as trophies, keepsakes to signify his achievement. A milestone in the life of a dark side wielder.

The boy looks over them with awe. “How do I know what color mine will be?”

“These aren't for you,” Ren says, locking them back up.

The boy frowns. “Then which ones are?”

“I don't know, but you'll have to find ones besides those.”

“Why?” he scoffs, sounding identical to Hux.

“Those are Jedi crystals,” he says with finality.

“What's wrong with them? Don't they work?”

“Of course they work,” Ren barks. “You will need to find a kyber crystal. Like my own.” As if he truly is concerned with completing this task.

Biting his lip, the boy squints in thought. “Where do you get those?”

“Well, not anywhere near here.” His own journey for his crystal took weeks of hunting for the perfect one. Red is a rarity among lightsaber crystals, and he didn't stop until he had one that emulated his lineage from Vader. Though, he can’t recall where his own lightsaber is. He doesn't need it here anyway.

“I don't want to leave,” implores the boy. “Can't I just use one of those?”

“No.” Absolutely out of the question.

The boy pouts. “I guess I'll go back to the cave and ask Father what he thinks,” the boy says, feigning innocence and ducking his chin into his chest.

Infuriated at his threat, Ren manages to not throttle the boy. He jerks open the case. “Just pick one.”

The boy breaks into an enormous grin. “Thank you, thank you,” he breathes, wrapping his short arms around Ren for a brief squeeze. Ren doesn't know how to react so he sets the case down, letting the boy examine each crystal carefully.

“This one!” he declares, holding it before Ren between two fingers.

Ren inspects its triangular shape, a miniature pyramid. “You sure?”

“Yes.” He blinks. “Wait, is something wrong with it?”

“No, but once you choose it, you can't change your mind,” Ren says, a fact he'd pulled out of thin air.

“I won't change my mind.”

They hold a staring contest. Ren loses.

“Alright,” Ren mutters. “What type of hilt do you want?” He'll need something practical, like the simple black notched one that was crafted by a white haired girl no more than two years his senior. She was slain with the saber activated, her lifeless hands clutching it in death.

“No, not that one. These two?” The boy holds up a silver one with rings around it and another silver one that's a lot smoother. Both of the lightsabers belonged to two Jedi that were slain in their sleep.

“You only need one,” Ren chides. No way are they going to make two.

“But I could put them together. Like how you made yours,” the boy looks down at the two hilts wistfully, Ren clearly disappointing him with everything he says.

“They both work fine on their own. There's no point in meddling when you don't need to.” Ren tries for levelness this time.

“But…” He sets them on the floor, lining them up to his liking. “I could use this half of this one and that half of that one. I'm not trying to be difficult. I just want to make it my own.”

After a beat, Ren compromises. “You can't just cut them in half and stick them back together. That’s not practical. But we can make yours your own. We can pick one to be the base and add parts of others to it.”

The boy springs up to his feet. “See, that's what you're here for,” he pats Ren's shoulder. “We should go outside. There's more light.”

He's right, the natural light is better than the dim lighting of the ship. Ren pulls the crate outside and the boy runs up to help, his much smaller muscles barely making a difference.

“Would this be a good base?” The boy holds out the smooth gray one.

Ren nods. “Now find whatever you want to add.”

“How about the clip on this one? It can dangle from my belt.” He pinches the clip in his thumb and index finger, letting the hilt sway like a wind chime.

A lightsaber shouldn't dangle, but Ren stifles the criticism. Hopefully the boy will be satisfied with as few attachments as possible. He nods.

“The button on this one looks cool. Is it going to be hard changing buttons?” He holds up a lightsaber with a button made of a durable opalescent stone.

“If you're willing to put the work in, we can.”

Smiling, the boy sets it aside with the other two lightsabers. So he doesn't mind doing the work. Good.

He shuffles around the crate some more while Ren prepares the soldering device. It'll take some time to heat up.

“I think this would make a good tip, don't you?” The boy pulls out a lightsaber with a long, retractable bayonet.

Ren’s eyes widen. He'd forgotten about this hilt. All of the Jedi once used the junk in this crate, but that particular one Ren had acquired while storming the wreckage and ruins of the Sith homeworld of Moraband. There wasn't a crystal inside, unfortunately, just the empty hilt of some anonymous Sith Lord lost to the times.

“I think it would,” Ren says approvingly. “But you might want to reconsider the clip if you're gonna have the blade attached.”

The boy nods in agreement, smiling to Ren.

Ren feels his face half-smiling back. He gets started with the primed solder tool, laying the base lightsaber on the ground and cradling it with pebbles to stabilize it. Once he removes the base saber’s button, he hands it off to the boy for him to participate. “Before we can set the new button we need to smooth the seam.”

He flips through his tool box, locating the rough grain and mild grain sandpaper. “Get the opening as smooth as you can. Rough paper first, then the smoother one. But don't touch the activation module inside. It's very fragile,” Ren advises, enthusiasm budding. No longer treating this activity like a chore.

“Got it,” the boy nods. He diligently files away the rough edges while Ren gets to work on the bayonet. It has a trigger of its own and Ren activates and deactivates it, testing the mechanical parts. It winds into a steel case adhered to the hilt, unraveling from its coil and straightening into its seamless form with the flick of the tab. With the utmost precise handiwork, Ren shears off the mechanism. The boy still has a lot of sanding to do so Ren waits to attach the bayonet, instead focusing on the crystal.

He detaches the casing without haste. Inside lies the focusing crystals he'd never bothered to remove. He's about to insert the main crystal when he stops himself, turning to look at the boy. “Put that down for a second.”

He complies, eagerly looking to Ren for his next order.

“Look inside and you can see the focusing crystals. Right underneath it is the mount for your crystal that you chose. That’s the source of the blade. Go ahead and try setting it in there,” Ren says, passing a pair of forceps. “The mount should hold it in place but if it can't, you might have to choose a new crystal.”

“I thought you said I can't choose another?” he accuses, narrowing his eyes in confusion.

Ren puckers his brow, embarrassed to be caught in his lie. “I was joking,” he tries.

The boy snorts. “You sounded serious. Normally you have better delivery.”

“Must be my scrambled egg brains,” Ren says easily.

The boy snorts. “Must be.” With the utmost concentration he places the crystal on the mount, snapping it in after several attempts.

Ren makes a few adjustments to the setting and the boy intently watches his hands work. Satisfied, Ren seals the casing of the hilt. The boy gets back to his sanding.

After Ren dislodges the new button, cutting around the metal of its setting, he starts to sand the piece so that it'll fit in the base hilt.

“This is gonna look so cool,” the boy says to Ren when the new button is set. “Can I activate it now?”

“Don't you want to wait ‘til it's finished?” They still haven't put the bayonet on.

“I'm eager to see what color it is,” he admits. “Please?”

Ren sighs. “Go for it.”

Holding the hilt out dramatically, he thumbs on the saber. Out springs a brilliant blue blade, its glow glimmering in his wide eyes. “It's amazing!” he squeals, waving it around, its energetic hum ebbing with every swipe.

Ren doesn't know why he'd expected a non-Jedi-like color after they chose from his assortment of trophies. Perhaps if he hoped enough the blade would morph into something more dark-sided. “How does it feel?”

“Powerful,” he grins. “I feel like I could be a great warrior one day. Like you.”

Ren’s chest thrums something unnamed. “Well. You did a good job.” He doesn't think he's ever spoken praise like that before. “Still want the bayonet attached?” he asks, hopeful.

He deactivates the saber, looking down at it from between both hands. “Definitely.”

It takes Ren and the boy another hour or so to complete the bayonet attachment, its assembly more complicated than they anticipated. Finally the bayonet whips out with no resistance, and Ren passes it to the boy to test it out with the lightsaber plasma blade activated.

As if it was always meant to be, the boy stabs the air with his hissing lightsaber, plasma blade reflecting in the chrome surface of the bayonet. He deactivates the lightsaber and flicks the trigger of the bayonet closed in its case.

Ren grunts under the might of the boy’s embrace, his arms squeezing the lower half of Ren’s body as high as his miniature stature he can reach. Awkwardly, Ren pats the brown-blond head of wavy hair, to which the boy squeezes him tighter. “Thank you,” says the boy, the accented voice of his son.

Kylo Ren has had this dream before. It plagues him like a chronic illness, riddling his bones with its degenerating affects. A relentless repetition, his mind poisons him as every experience of the dream leaves no memory of the last. Only this iteration his mind forces Ren to carry with him.

Ren looks down at his hand, inhaling sharply to find it veined with age, the once dark hairs on his arm turned silver.

The boy holds him tighter. Only he’s no longer a boy, but a man. Ren’s chin rests atop the man’s wide, muscled shoulder, embraces his full, mature form. He can’t see his face but feels the tickle of chin length, brown-blond hair.

“Thank you,” says the man, the accented voice of his son.

The cool, prod of a lightsaber greets Ren’s back from behind. The metal blade of his bayonet an icicle, slicing through his spine out the front side of him. It breaks the skin of his son who holds him tightly, chest to chest, but this matters little to him as he twists the blade with finality.

 

\--

 

Beyond the scope of his confining mind, Ren thrashes in his bonds, eyes pinned wide and opaque. Completely unseeing and unsensing from behind his imprisoning dream within his dreams, but this makes little difference to the terrified Republic medic, who scrambles for his comm to alert the Jedi that his ward is awake. 

“Someone get the Jedi! Quickly!” the medic cries. "He's doing something crazed and demonic!"

Across the cruiser, Hux sighs in his interrogation chamber. It’s been hours since that pilot Poe Dameron had shoved him away. A niggling part of him tells him it’s because he’s wasted, useless even to these imbecilic anarchists. He was evidently useless to Ren who would rather nap and get them captured than deal with him.

Hux’s eyes slip shut, forehead plastered to the table.

_The unmistakable expanse of the bowels of Starkiller Base surround a dark figure—Ren, fists clenched defensively, mask obstructing his expression._

_Another man comes into view. He’s old, tired, familiar in an inexplicable way. “Take off that mask. You don't need it.”_

_“What do you think you'll see if I do?” Ren’s helmet vocalizes._

_The older man takes a step towards Ren. “The face of my son.”_

Hux flinches, rage and confusion bubbling. What a terribly inconvenient and useless daydream. It makes no sense. It’s not even his memory. He must be dehydrated, delusional with stress of capture although he’s followed all the protocol for wartime confinement and interrogation coping methods. Not that anyone has bothered to visit him.

Someone—probably Ren—must be manipulating him into giving a shit about Ren’s infamous paternal issues. It’s demeaning. He has his own fucking problems. Ren should take a page out of his book and master apathy. Not that Hux gives a shit about Ren’s feelings or Ren in any way whatsoever after everything he’s done to him.

_Ren takes off his mask, revealing an aged, severe countenance, bleached in red light, grey hair whipping in the passing current of the oscillator. He looks nearly identical to the haggard man before him, weighted down by their sins and calamity._

_Instead of facing the haggard man, the aged Ren is embracing a young man, brows pinched pensive with devotion, mouth twisted with regret and sorrow. The young man’s face isn’t revealed, just his broad, athletic build and his wavy brown-blond hair._

_“Thank you,” says the young man, the accented voice of his son._

_Ren’s eyes boggle in wild shock, simultaneous disbelief and surrender, wheezing pitifully in the confines of the young man’s arms. The wet squelch of a blade twists definitive and final, Ren’s firelight flickering out and drenching the universe in black._

Hux’s chair screeches against the cement floor as he flings himself off the table to grate his fingernails against his scalp. Confused beyond tolerance, Hux batters the floor with his fervent, obsessive pacing.

 

\--

 

Lungs seizing, Ren pulls away in a fit of asthmatic rage and falls to the ground.

“Father!” shouts the boy, his newly made lightsaber clattering on the ground, forgotten. “Is it your breath again? Father!” the young voice echoes.

Ren wheezes desperately, knees abrading through his work-weakened trousers against the stone beach.

“What happened?” Ren hears Hux frantically in the distance, to which the boy replies, “He just started up with his breathing again. I don’t know what happened!”

“Ren,” Hux’s concerned face fills his vision. “Ren, tell me what’s wrong,” he instructs calmly, a constant in the torrent of madness.

“He—” Breaking into a fit of coughs, Ren fumbles for his chest. He feels around for the extent of the wound but only senses normal, unbroken skin.

It wasn’t real. It wasn’t real.

“Get a hold of your breath. That’s it. Keep your eyes on me,” Hux guides, two cool palms cradling his cheeks.

“I…” Ren starts after several long minutes of trying to control his breathing, begging into Hux’s pale eyes. He lets their coolness douse the flame within him, stifling the burning anger and terror that wrench out laborious breaths.

He glares murderously to the boy, who stands beside him clenching his hands in two worried fists, eyes glittering no longer in mirth but with fresh tears. Ren looks down, hanging his head between his shoulders. “I saw something.”

“What did you see?” asks Hux, patient and gentle.

Ren’s eyes cloud over, mind assaulting him with Hux lying dead on the beach behind the black hills. The bayonet slicing through his own aging heart.

Without a single word, Ren snatches the bayonetted lightsaber hilt from the ground. He gets to his feet, running into the water and throwing it far, far into the lake where there’s no chance the boy will ever be able to retrieve it. The lake ripples, definitively casting the lightsaber away into its depths.

The wind picks up, sweeping fresh, crisp air through Ren’s hair. His boots crackle against the rocks beneath as he takes his labored breaths, watching the lake surface tremble back into order with the pasting gust.

He turns back to the other two inhabitants of the lakeshore. The boy’s staring up at him, mouth hanging open. He looks to Hux, blinking his glassy green eyes before breaking out into a sprint for the tree line. From behind Ren sees his baggy sleeve come up to swipe at his face just before he disappears between the evergreens.

Hux brands him with the most disgusted glare describable. “ _Why_ did you do that?”

Ren turns to Hux, the hatred contorting his features striking something inside Ren with its familiarity. There should never have been a doubt this place was his reality.

“Answer me. How could you? You know how much that meant to him!” Hux accuses, heartbreak shining through his anger.

Ren looks back out to the lake because he can no longer look at the man in front of him. “No son of mine will wield a Jedi’s blade.”

The slap that strikes his cheekbone stings hotter than the scorch of a blaster bolt.

Hux stomps off to the cave without another word, leaving Ren to stand alone at the foot of the Falcon with his crate of broken trophies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so long story short i make myself cry rereading the end to this chapter T_T i just thought you guys should know
> 
> also #DISCLAIMER i promise we will get an assload of hux&marin real soon!! i promise!!! it'll be worth the wait!! i just really wanted to establish kylo ren's relationship with his kid because of the significance of his dreams at this point in the fic and the dreams are kylo-centric bc theyre in his brain. trust me there is definitely enough mangst on both sides in the near future.
> 
> thank you guys for your awesome feedback :D


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I posted two chapters for thanksgiving! :D hope you guys enjoy!

 

General Organa interrupts Hux’s pacing, activating the door of the interrogation room behind her. It's just the two of them in here. She points for Hux to take the chair on the opposite side of the table.

“I know you've had time to think about how you already plan on getting out of here,” General Organa says when Hux complies, each toting unreadable expressions. “But we're willing to negotiate for information about your former people.” If it hadn’t been for Marin, Hux’s fate would not be negotiable.

“What makes you think you have anything to offer that would interest me?” Hux tries, testing how she'll respond. To answer his own question, quite a lot. The Resistance is all that's left in the galaxy besides Ren that can depose Snoke.

General Organa casts her eyes to the empty table between them, mind at another place. “What happened to him?” she asks instead. She refuses to give Hux the satisfaction of using Ben’s chosen name.

“He had an accident.”

“Describe it to me,” the general says flatly.

Hux spares a truth. “One minute we were arguing and the next he fell over backwards. Had a few seizures.”

“And what about the broken nose?”

Hux snorts. “Guilty. The man’s got no manners. Good job on that one,” he adds, unable to help himself.

She ignores him. “And his chest? The deathswitch? How do we know you’re not lying?”

“You don’t,” he threatens.

“Where we're you two going?” she presses, focusing her concerns.

Hux leans forward. “That's what we were arguing about. Which system to pillage next, where we could see how many children’s heads we could fit on a stick.”

The general is clearly not amused. “So he just collapsed? That's all you have for us? How do we know whatever you injected him with didn't put him in the coma?”

“What I injected him with wouldn't put him in a coma if activated, that's for certain,” Hux proclaims. “Now, General. We both want the same thing.” He goes for the kill. “Ren is the only being who knows where Snoke is hiding. Get him conscious and I'll get him to tell you everything you need to find him.”

General Organa raises a skeptical brow. Funny how he can see Ren in that expression. He'd imagine Ren wouldn't like hearing that.

“Forgive me if I don't believe you can,” she shakes her head.

Hux can't quite mask his grimace. “He'll tell me. He's done it before. Me and him go way back,” he says with hidden meaning. If only she knew.

“General!” interrupts Dameron from the swipe of the door, sparing a glare at Hux. “We have a situation.”

Without excusing herself, General Organa jogs out to the mouth of the detention level to the medbay where Finn and Rey are desperately trying to get control of Kylo Ren’s storm. Sharp medical tools and devices fly through the air with Ren’s Force-use, in motion even in his coma. Rey grips his sweat-matted head, knees braced on either side of him. While Finn chases down the blades whizzing by, the medic pinned to the wall narrowly avoiding getting stabbed. Chewbacca growls at the flying objects, taking everything in his resolve to not shoot Kylo Ren in his fury.

“I can’t calm him down!” Rey shouts over the electrical groaning of the malfunctioning monitoring equipment. Kylo Ren’s mind is a tempest, swirling and swirling around the eye of the storm. She’s completely unable to access it, the force of the torrents on the surface impenetrable for even her powers. She’d gotten inside before but this time his mind is submerged so inaccessibly that even he won’t be able to escape it on his own.

As an answer to their prayers, the storm passes, his unconscious body slumping into the mattress. Rey climbs down, wiping the sweat from her hands on her pants. “I didn’t do anything. He just stopped.”

Rey helps Finn, Poe and Chewbacca clean up her cousin’s mess, pushing the materials back into organization. The medic excuses himself to retch in the nearby refresher.

“Clear the room of anything not bolted down,” General Organa says wearily. Blanching, the general comes to a startling realization. “Where’s Marin?”

Finn brushes off some broken shards of plastic from his coat. “I told him to stay put. By the third level cafeteria.”

“You need to stay with him at all times,” she orders with hardened patience.

“All due respect, General, I wasn’t gonna let Rey deal with Kylo Ren all by herself,” Finn says. “I thought we wanted to keep him away from his father in case he tries anything?” They’re here with Ren—who somehow is prone to violent outbursts even while bound and unconscious—and Marin’s outside snacking on candy, so what’s the big deal?

Stricken with a new rush of fear, General Organa runs to the direction of the detention level.

 

\--

 

Thuds wrack the walls of the interrogation chamber, startling Hux out of his bored lull. Hux peers out the viewport at the commotion.

The Resistance guards are slumped to the floor, not dead but passed out. Interesting. Maybe Ren woke up after all. Though knowing him, these guards would be split in two and not just rendered unconscious.

Instead of Ren’s hulking form he sees two green-blue eyes poking out just barely from the rectangle of the viewport. A little scarred hand palms on a panel, fumbling frustratingly to activate something.

“Are you the prisoner?” comes an accented voice of a young boy, digitized through an intercom speaker and muffled through the glass.

Hux looks down at him, brows pinching together in confusion. He hadn’t known the Resistance trains child interrogators. He’s impressed. Though they probably wouldn’t teach them going around neutralizing their own armed guards. “I’m where I want to be,” Hux answers.

The boy narrows his scrutinizing eyes to him and Hux stifles a chill. He stands on his tip-toes, revealing more of his cherubic, freckled face. “Your voice. I know your voice,” he says cryptically through the glass.

Must be a mentally deficient child. Pity. “Run along. Your mother’s probably worried sick,” he drones, already eager for General Organa to make her next visit. Now that’s a worried mother.

“I don’t have a mother. Hey, don’t go! I’m talking to you,” the child shouts after him, slapping a palm on the glass as if Hux is some exotic animal in captivity he’s trying to get a rise out of.

Hux scoffs, turning back to the viewport. “Let me guess, is your mother dead? Did I kill her and you’re here to seek revenge?” Resistance dogs, always on some fool hearted crusade.

“No, I don’t have a mother! But I know you came on our ship with my father, Kylo Ren. You’re the fugitive, right?” Marin tries his hardest to look through the glass at the man with the familiar voice, the man composed of the bizarre firelight life.

The man stops making noises. “Hello? Are you still there?” He slaps the glass again. “Hello?”

“Marin, what are you doing?!” shouts his grandmother from the end of the hall. She’s really upset and he knows it’s directed at him. But he just couldn’t help himself. The firelight life was too intriguing.

“I know I promised to stay away from my father for now until you all get him under control. But I just came here to—”

“You will never come down this way again. Do you understand me?” She grips both his shoulders, eyes clouded with fear.

“But—”

“Marin, you have to listen to me.” All this has happened before. The pit of evil that will swallow the boy whole, spitting out a murderer, a plaything of the dark side. She sees Ben in Marin. She can’t let Marin fall as he did.

General Organa reaches out with her senses, reading life from the two guards that had been pulled into slumber. In her heart she knows that this was Marin’s doing, an untrained but powerful Force-user, unique in his own way. She reaches to Marin, sensing his earnestness, his honesty, his confusion.

She dares reach the man on the other side of the glass. Only to be bombarded with the most impenetrable mental wall she’s ever come across in a lifeform.

“I’m sorry, Grandmother,” he slumps his head forward, looking entirely too much like Ben that her heart breaks all over again. “I promise I’ll stay put. I won’t let you down again.”

She pulls Marin close, embracing him warmly. He reciprocates as naturally as the heart of young child can love.

Marin walks dutifully behind his grandmother, hands hanging at his sides. He can’t get that man’s voice out of his head! He knows that voice. He’s heard it before, a faraway memory. It’s as truth to him as the fact he was meant to be named Marin.

Come to think of it, he can’t think of what Kylo Ren’s voice sounds like. How can he be so sure he’s heard the fugitive’s voice, as sure as if it was ingrained in his genetics but not the voice of Kylo Ren, his father and his future master?

Completely stumped, Marin sits back at the table Finn left him at. Oh no, now Finn is gonna yell at him too. Grandmother yelling at him is one thing, but Finn yelling is another. Finn has no reason to like him because they aren’t family like his grandmother, Rey, and Luke are. He doesn’t want Finn to treat him like Chewie treats him. “Finn, I know I said I wouldn’t run off. I got too curious. It won’t happen again. I swear,” Marin blabbers to Finn before he can get a word out.

Finn sits next to him, passing him the bag of red candies. “I know you won’t. Under the threat of getting scolded again by the general, I know you won’t.”

Smiling brightly, Marin takes a handful.

His mind betrays him and defaults back to the prisoner. Perhaps there’s a way he can find out more about him without ever leaving Finn’s side. It’s the best he’s willing to compromise.

 

\--

 

Shoulders squared, General Organa takes a deep breath and marches back to the detention level.

“The guards will be replaced but for now we need the privacy. I’m the only one who wants to keep my son alive. You try anything, they’ll be hell to pay. Without me no one will think twice about killing you both. If that deathswitch of yours actually works,” she levels to the back of Hux’s head.

Hux hears her, always receptive regardless of his own state of mind, but gives no indication he had.

“Nearly eight years ago,” General Organa begins, once seated. “A good friend of mine caught wind of my son stranded on a deserted planet, long after he’d defected to the First Order. There was a man with him. A young man about Ben’s age who by nothing short of a medical miracle had been carrying what he’d been told was Ben’s child.”

As silent as the dead of space, Hux remains standing. So she continues.

“I’ve never told a single soul this in fear of what would happen if the secret got out. Even though there was no evidence the child had ever existed. But not only did I know he existed, I knew he was still alive out there somewhere. That man was you, wasn’t it? You carried my son’s child. You’re the other father.” She speaks the truth aloud for the very first time.

Slow and careful, Hux swivels on his heel to face the general. Every nerve ablaze, peeled back and raw. General Organa doesn’t waver against his waves of rage.

“Your son,” Hux finally speaks, enunciating deliberately. “Your son tortured me. Slowly, intimately from the inside out. He had no regard for anyone or anything but to sate his lust. And when he took—” Hux never staves his words, never, certainly not for the head Resistance dog. But his mouth won’t allow him to speak what he feels as if trying to spare him the pain.

“He’s no more of a father than I,” Hux continues. “He’s belligerent, manipulative, deceitful. A coward. A rapist. I wouldn’t expect anything less than the same from his spawn. I never have and never will want anything to do with it!” he manages to finish, voice cracking, palms protesting under the force of his clenched fists.

The blood pooling between his fingers drips to the floor. General Organa frowns at the spill, weighing in her head exactly how they’d ended up here.

 

\--

 

Ren breaks the surface of the lake, gasping in the cool air. The boy’s lightsaber has completely vanished, just like he hoped.

But here he is diving and dredging the entire lake for it. With no luck. It’s been carried away by currents or swallowed by critters. Or maybe sent through a hole in the ground, one that has no end and deposited the saber on the opposite hemisphere of the planet. He dives back down again, longing for a rebreather. But finding none suitable for underwater use he settles for diving into the less than optimal temperature, chest aching with every breath. His joints protest at the exertion but determination keeps him going.

After several hours of diving and turning up nothing, Ren trudges back to the lakeshore. The boy wasn’t there before but he’s waiting there now, watching him haul to the dry land. Hux is tucked away in the cave, refusing to speak to him.

“Did you find it?” asks the boy, when Ren meets him at the lakeshore.

Ren says nothing, sitting by the bonfire to warm himself. His emptyhandedness serving as his response.

“Father said you’re a crazy prick,” adds the boy.

That’s certainly a very Hux-like opinion. “Do you agree with him?”

“I know you were having an episode. At first I was really, really hurt but I know you have problems with reality.” He plops down next to his father, crossing his legs. “Can we make another lightsaber?”

Ren’s heart stutters, his vision fresh in his mind. “No.”

The boy looks down to fiddle with his sleeve.

“No, because you already made that one your own,” Ren finds himself saying. “And I’m gonna find it and bring it back.”

“Really?” the boy perks up.

“Yes. But it might take a while.”

“Maybe I could help,” he suggests, hope glimmering in the greens of his eyes.

Ren doesn’t think, just reacts. He throws an arm over the boy’s shoulders, pulling him close. The boy smiles into his chest. Ren sees a boy crooning over his father’s affection, attention, approval. He sees himself.

The sun’s setting, silhouetting the evergreens with its fiery haze. There’s still plenty of daylight. “Can you swim?” Ren asks the boy. There’s something warm in his heart, free and youthful.

“Of course I can. You showed me, remember? You can’t just forget how to swim,” the boy admonishes. “We better not let Father see. He’ll probably scold us because of how cold the lake is this time of year.” He sheds his long-sleeved shirt and boots, mimicking Ren’s ensemble.

Ren eyes the cave. Hux is still tucked away nose buried in his work. His cheek tingles, recalling the fury behind his slap. “He doesn’t have to know. C’mon,” he guides the boy, determined to find the lightsaber so Hux won’t ever again have to look at him how he had that morning.

“How long can you hold your breath?” Ren asks.

“Hopefully long enough,” he quips, grinning excitedly.

In tandem they break the threshold of the shore, the boy squealing at the iciness bombarding his toes. “Ssh,” Ren holds up a hand, animatedly looking back at the cave. “Or we’ll get caught.”

“Oh, right.” The boy grits his teeth as they submerge waist deep into the lake.

Together they bob under the surface of the water. The lake’s floor is dimly lit in the dying sun but Ren knows they won’t find the lightsaber anyway. He’d already looked everywhere. Ren keeps an eye out for the boy’s diving, his skinny arms gliding through the water.

When he and Hux had floated in the ocean on the cloner’s planet in their exile, their baby had enjoyed the calmness of the water. Now’s no different. The boy can really hold his breath, diligently scouring the rocks on the bottom for the hidden saber.

After another minute they break the surface, flipping their twin mops of sopping hair from their eyes.

“Did you see anything?” Ren asks.

“No, just rocks. We should look over there,” he nods to the center of the lake. Ren obliges, leading them to the farther part. The lake goes heads deeper than Ren’s height but they stop to tread around where the water is at Ren’s chest.

Plants or fishes tickle his ankle and Ren inadvertently splashes the boy in the face from his spasm against the eerie sensation.

“Hey! You dropped this,” the boy smirks, sending a tidal wave in his direction, waterlogging his nostrils. Ren’s not sure how much of that can be attributed to the Force. Regardless, he’s enticed to horseplay. Ren retorts with a much larger sweep of water, dunking the boy to his side.

“Oh, you've really done it now,” the boy giggles, trying his hardest to reciprocate the force of the splash. But instead of hitting Ren again he splashes the surface with no Ren in sight.

From beneath the surface, Ren torpedoes himself under the boy’s treading legs, and pushing upwards to launch the boy high on his shoulders.

Squealing in delight, the boy grips Ren’s hair to stable himself from his precarious perch. “Woo-hoo!”

Ren grins toothily, toes kicking at the bottom of the lake. He grips the boy on his shoulders, spinning him around. His eyes fall on Hux on the lakeshore, crossing his arms by the fire.

He smiles to Hux and the boy spots him, too. “Look! I’m an AT-AT walker!” the boy shouts to Hux.

From the distance, Hux’s lips tug into a smirk.

Ren considers that a win.

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yaas 2 chapters in one day! happy thanksgiving to those who celebrate!

 

 

General Organa has long since abandoned Hux to be tormented by his own thoughts, guards outside replaced with new ones. The one on the right takes every chance to glare at Hux through the viewport. The same viewport with the little series of child’s handprints. Hux sinks to the floor underneath the viewport incase the boy comes back.

His outburst to the Resistance general was nothing short of embarrassing, but she’d provoked him until he snapped, all that pent up rage at Ren for harboring him and inflicting weeks of constant torture on him. Of Ren filling his head with ideas of the child doing great things for the Order and being his apprentice of the dark side, an unconditional ally with Ren and his Knights, Hux and his army.

Only to take it all away, passing the baby off to please Snoke.

Now, almost eight years later, Hux has no army, no rank, no power. All he has is Ren—fucking _Ren_ —the man who plagues him in his daydreams with his own familial baggage. Ren, his last hope for retribution.

He envisions the handprints even though they’re just on the glass above his head. Five fingers. A memory resurfaces in his mind against his will as they often do. Vivid, colorful mental pictures of the gurgling infant, images he began to revisit more and more after his exile. Dark blue eyes had developed to green-blue, the brown hair to a dirty blond. There are still five fingers on each of his hands.

More recent visions resurface. Ren’s aged, severe countenance, bleached in red light, grey hair whipping in the passing wind. Ren embracing a young man, brows pinched pensive with devotion, mouth twisted with regret and sorrow. The young man’s broad, athletic build and wavy brown-blond hair.

The accented voice of his son thanking him before he impales him on a blade, the wet squelch of it twisting definitive and final. Ren flickering out and drenching the universe in black.

Whether it’s the future, Ren’s projected delusions, or something else entirely, Hux ignores it in favor of massaging his gut. Stomach rumbling, he’s reminded how he hasn’t eaten in days. The sting of hunger brings back more memories of being trapped with Ren on the beach, the sand quaking beneath their feet. The Ren-ling somersaulting inside of him, fighting to be free.

The Ren-ling’s free now, nearly a decade’s worth of not being confined in Hux’s shell. But look where he’d ended up. In the hands of the loathsome Resistance, most likely getting brainwashed by the scavenger girl and the traitor, and that arrogant yet heroically handsome pilot.

“He looks like a hero, doesn’t he?” pipes a voice to Hux’s side.

It’s the boy, the Ren-ling, somehow sitting right next to him in this interrogation room.

Hux shoots up. “How did you get in here?” he panics, banging on the glass at the guards. “Guard! There’s an intruder!”

The guards side-eye Hux through the glass, and the one on the right smacks his fist into it threateningly. Unprofessional.

“Don’t do that! They’ll think you’re crazy. They can’t see me because I’m not really here,” the boy reasons.

Hux refuses to goad his anxiety. He turns away from the window, forcing himself to look down at the boy.

Ren-ling may not have been the best description for the boy. He looks almost nothing like Ren, maybe except for the jaw and cheekbones. And the mop of hair, but Hux’s hair looks much like that these days anyway. Unfortunate that the boy inherited Ren’s goofy ears, poking out like fins. He’s got Hux’s eyes and complexion and accent and maybe the nose too, Hux can’t be sure. He doesn’t know where the dirty blond hair comes from. Probably Ren and his intriguing family history. The surreality of it all threatens to buckle his knees.

“Am I imagining you? Have I finally snapped?” Hux tries, grimacing. This must be what it’s like being Ren. Maybe he should throw his apparition into a wall to demonstrate his superiority over it.

“No, I’m real. I’m sitting in the cafeteria with Finn. I concentrated and put myself here. Well, not here, but up there,” the boy points to Hux’s head.

“How?” Hux demands. Can the Ren-ling really read his thoughts?

“I dunno. I just can. I think it’s another one of my powers but I never really was able to do this until I felt you across—”

“Why go through the trouble?” Hux interrupts. Really, he would like to know. “Why speak to me when you could speak to Kylo Ren—your _father_?” Hux grimaces around the term.

The boy pouts. “I can try that. But his brain is like a crazy stormy night. Can’t seem to latch on like how I can with you.”

Hux says nothing, crossing his arms together subconsciously over his abdomen. Trying not to focus too much on how familiar the boy feels.

“Grandmother told me to stay away from you,” the boy says, sitting where Hux was sitting a moment ago.

“You should’ve listened to her.”

“I have! I just found a loophole.”

“Pretty sure if she knew you were doing this, she’d be angry.”

“Well, I needed to talk to you somehow. You’re different than the others.”

Hux frowns. “The others?”

“Yeah, the others like Finn and my family. Luke, Grandmother, Rey. I don’t know about my father, though. They haven’t let me see him yet. He’s really sick. Out cold.” The boy regards Hux curiously when he squats next to him under the viewport in order to hide their conversation from the guards. “Are you friends with my father?”

Friends? He and Ren? “I’m the closest thing to a friend your father is capable of making. I’m his arch enemy.”

The boy’s golden eyebrows jump up. “You’re his arch enemy?!”

“Yes, I am. I stole him from the safety of the First Order to do my bidding. To kill Supreme Leader Snoke once and for all,” Hux adds loftily. Mania drives his words, beyond disbelieving he’s carrying on a conversation with this boy.

“You know of Supreme Leader Snoke?”

“Of course. I despise him. He’s the one who cast me from my rightful rank.”

“Why?” he asks his millionth question.

“Because of your father. He was too stupid to let go of his grudges with the Jedi to defend our base—and together we got it completely destroyed.”

Contemplation tightens his features. “My father’s not stupid,” the boy frowns, crossing his arms.

Of course he chooses to remark on that part of his divulgation. Brainwashed into idolizing Ren, living amongst the Resistance. Pathetic and shameful. Hux is disgusted he ever had an ounce of care for this parasite. “He really is so, so incredibly stupid. Your intellect far surpasses his and I’ve only spoken with you once.”

“You must not know him well at all.”

“There isn’t another soul who knows him better than I,” Hux argues, truthful.

The boy just shrugs. “What’s your name?” he asks, completely changing the direction of the conversation.

“Hux.” He peers down at the boy through his narrowed eyes. “What’s yours?” This ought to be good. Ren probably saddled him with an equally as ridiculous name as Kylo Ren upon delivery to Snoke.

“I’m Marin,” the boy smiles.

The joviality of the banter dissipates completely, and Hux blinks away a fresh wave of awe and sorrow. “Marin?” Hux repeats, breathless. The name holding the most private, treasured of meanings to him.

“Yes, it’s Marin.”

Almost two decades ago, when Hux had graduated the Academy on his homeworld of Arkanis, he’d paid off a team of engineers to delete anything and everything about his father’s adulterous habits from before his birth and growing up. Most of which included documents that his birthmother had served under the Empire, and later, the First Order.

Not his father’s wife, nor a petty officer, not even a Stormtrooper, but a kitchen servant girl no older than nineteen at the time of his birth. He had nothing of her, no knowledge of her death or if she were still alive, no memories, no trinkets. Not even a name until years later when he was a subordinate officer on the greatest Star Destroyer since the days of the Empire he’d found a small, discarded file back on his homeworld. A hard copy, tucked away for no one to see if they weren’t scrutinizing as he had been.

Between two thin slips of paper was the image of his mother—young, beautiful, immortalized in ink. Red hair and green eyes, galaxies of freckles. On the back was the inscription in handwritten ink: _Marin A. at Eighteen._ He knew not where the papers came from or who they belonged to. He took one last mental picture of the photograph in his hands, and threw it into an incinerator. He hadn’t looked back since.

“Who named you that?” Hux hisses.

“I named myself,” Marin explains easily.

“Tell me who told you that name.” Sentiment infects him, burning his cheeks with anger.

“I _said_ , nobody named me. I named me.”

“Nobody names themselves.”

“Kylo Ren named himself,” Marin counters. “I named myself because I knew my father wanted me to have that name. I knew it like how I knew how to speak. I just knew.”

Hux smacks his head on the wall behind him. The Ren-ling, sitting here before him—or inside his head, whatever—puts a comforting hand on Hux’s arm. “Don't do that to your head,” he consoles, and then looks at Hux’s palms, still oozing blood from his explosion to General Organa. “You're bleeding.”

“It doesn't matter,” Hux discloses. Marin, his son, the little lifeform he'd carried in his womb, the monster baby that tried to claw him from the inside, the boy with the five fingers on each hand and the intuitive green-blue eyes. The boy who chose the name of his mother. Not his father’s wife, but his real mother, the one he'd purged from so many records until there was nothing left of her.

Funny how Hux turned out to be more like his real mother than his father, whom he modeled himself after from as far as his mannerisms to his goals of power and grandeur. He'd ended up nearly identical to how she did, a receptacle for the next generation of more powerful men than he. A sow for their own means, destined to be tossed away like garbage in an incinerator.

Before the Ren-ling appropriated the name it was meaningless to everyone in the galaxy, to everyone except Hux. The boy doesn't even know the meaning of the name. He has no idea how Hux’s mind betrayed him by toying with the idea that he could name his baby after his own mother, the myth of her all that remains, battling the sentimental grievances he kept inevitably falling back to.

The boy doesn't know how Ren had violated him, how he had been forced to bear his child, how he and Ren had fought against nature to bring him to life. That Ren had taken him from Hux to please his master, after lying to him and filling his head with the idea that they could raise him under the structure of the First Order.

The boy doesn't know how Hux first felt him kick, how all the kicks following had been torture but Ren had tried his hardest to ease the pain. How after he was born Hux had first held him and he was so small and fragile, how he supported his head and fed him, how he counted all his fingers and toes and told him he was meant for grand things.

The boy doesn't know any of that. He doesn't even know that Hux is his father.

Hux considers telling him, but that would constitute admitting these foolish sentiments aloud.

He bangs his head on the steel wall behind him once more. Closing his eyes, he pulls up the photograph of his mother.

“Are you alright?” Marin asks, scooting on his bottom so that he's directly in front of Hux.

Hux opens his eyes. “What do you know about your father?”

Marin purses his lips. “I know he's the greatest warrior that ever lived. And that his family wants him to fight for the light, but I know he never will. Grandmother thinks he will have a change of heart, but some people aren't made for the light. He's supposed to be a balance of the two like Supreme Leader Snoke once said. Or something like that.”

“Is that it?” Hux sneers. He doesn’t give a shit about the Force.

Marin frowns, scouring his mind for more details. “I also know he's powerful and he's going to help me make my first lightsaber. And I'm going to train with him. And we're going to be a family. But I'm also going to train with the Jedi but don't tell him yet—”

“Alright,” Hux barks, unable to hear how not only does Marin want to train with Ren, he also wants to become a Jedi, a brainwashed Resistance trog. And be a _family._ “What about your mother?” he asks next, void of emotion.

“I told you. I don't have one.”

“Well, you must have come from someone. Humans don't just spud off their young. Not even Ren,” Hux grimaces.

Marin scratches his head. “I'm telling you, Supreme Leader Snoke said I don't have any parents besides Kylo Ren.”

“How did he make you, then?”

“I don’t know.”

“Haven't you thought about it at all?” Hux taunts.

“Of course I have!” growls Marin, clenching his hands into fists. “Why do you care so much about my mother? Kylo Ren is my father, and Rey and Luke and Grandmother are all the family I need.”

“The Resistance brigade might care for you, but what’s the love of a dog truly worth? And Kylo Ren? I truly pity you if you think that Kylo Ren will ever care for you.” Hux is powerless to control the frothing rage. At Snoke, at Ren, at the galaxy. At himself.

The boy looks stricken. “He will! When he meets me, he will. We'll do all kinds of activities like him and his father used to do.”

Hux raises his brow, but says nothing.

Marin reddens under the scrutiny. “A-and even if he doesn't right away, I have plenty of family who already do!”

Hux crosses his arms. “Oh, I bet you do.”

Marin’s throat bobs, eyes glassy. “So what if I don’t have a mother? I don’t need one.” He tries to sound confident but grief quivers his words.

The wordless, challenging glower Hux replies with spikes anger in the boy, bringing him to his feet.

There’s no mistaking Kylo Ren’s paternity from the boy’s distinct scowl and his antagonistic stance, too bizarrely familiar within the mental space they converse in. “What about you? Your mother? What about your family? You're just a prisoner. What have you got?!”

Eyes flashing, Hux leans forward into Marin’s space. “You want to do activities like Kylo Ren and his _father_ did?” Hux goads, mouth twisting. Pointedly connecting his and Marin’s twin pairs of eyes. “Kylo Ren murdered his father. Was that the fun you had in mind?”

Hux could pinpoint the moment the boy's world came crashing down, his glare melting to heartbreak. “You're lying.”

“He killed him without a second thought—without an iota of regard for anyone but himself!”

“You're lying!” sniffles the boy.

Marin buries his face in his arm, devolving into tears.

“Hey, buddy, what's wrong?” he hears Finn asking him with urgency.

Marin’s sitting at the cafeteria, back in his own head now, no longer poking around the prisoner's.

He can't tell Finn what he did without getting in trouble, so he comes up with his first lie. “I'm just...worried about Kylo Ren.” He is, but that's not why he started crying.

Finn nods, not knowing what to say. “It's gonna work out,” he manages, offering Marin some more candies.

Marin refuses them, sniffing into his sleeve. Maybe there's a way he can ask Finn about Han Solo without giving himself up. “How did Kylo Ren’s father die?”

“Um.” Finn had not expected that. “I'll have the general explain.”

“Why can't you?” Marin needs to know the truth.

“Because, it's complicated.”

“Finn, you can tell me. I can handle it.” He's not a baby.

“It has nothing to do with you.”

“Finn, please!”

Finn sighs deeply, heavy with responsibility. “Kylo Ren murdered him.”

Marin casts his eyes low, swiping away a silent tear. “Why would he do that?”

“It's the dark side. It changed him, made him hateful and hungry for power.” Finn doesn't say how Ren had probably already been evil before the dark side, but he can break it to him later.

“But...didn't he love him?”

Finn’s heart breaks. “Once, maybe. But the dark side clouded whatever love he'd felt for his family. Which is why—no matter what—you can't let yourself give into the dark. It'll tear you apart.”

Marin always had a loose concept of the dark and light sides of the Force. He knew that the dark was more volatile, that its users would react brash and sometimes carelessly. He never imagined it brought as great a warrior as Kylo Ren to kill someone they love. That’s not what Supreme Leader Snoke ever told him.

“Listen, Marin. I don't think you got much sleep last night. Let's go find somewhere to rest and we can talk about this more tomorrow,” Finn advises.

“That's a good idea,” Marin agrees. Hand in hand they head off to lie their heads down for a while.

 

\--

 

In the interrogation room on the detention level behind the door patrolled by two angry armed guards, Hux sits cross-legged underneath the viewport.

He'd upset Marin, that's for certain. No child should be ignorant to their family history, no matter how shameful or bloody the truth is.

Looks like his time with the Resistance has already made him a squabbling brat. A pity.

Hux exhales, visualizing the handprint above. He locks the mental picture away, deep down with the images of the very first pictures he stashed of Marin, and the significantly more Ren-like Marin who shouted at him from inside his own mind.

The door hisses open, but the petite stature of General Organa is not what he sees. Instead files in five Resistance dogs, two of which were the ones Hux recognizes from their post outside. Hux makes no move to stand, already calculating his dwindling odds.

The first one approaches, bending at the knees. He's a human male, pale skinned, an intricate tattoo crawling down his neck. “I didn't believe it when I was told. General Hux, destroyer of worlds. Captured. Sitting in a cozy cell having luncheons with General Organa.”

Hux eyes him, saying nothing.

“My name is Treese Kel,” the man continues, pulling something out from his belt.

“Is that supposed to mean something to me?” Hux drawls.

Lightning fast, Treese plunges a needle in Hux’s neck. “My name is Treese Kel,” he repeats, a fist in Hux’s hair, “and you murdered my family.”

Unable to stop the scream wrenched from within, Hux scrambles to get away from the freshness of the agony lancing his skull. The man before him kicks his boot into his abdomen, flourishing a vibroblade from his belt.

The drug targeting his nervous system fills his bloodstream, enhancing every throttle, every stab, every tear, every crunch.

Hux wonders if Marin can see him like this.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the drama!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! yas now we have more of a feel for Marin's powers, as well as the bond he and Hux share! and yes, i did make up Hux's birthmother's name HA but now we won't forget it because #iconic #hux&marin #father&son #bond...lots more to come, stay tuned!


	11. Chapter 11

 

 

Ren wakes up on the bed roll again, unable to remember how or when he'd fallen asleep. Must have been his days’ worth of diving for the lightsaber and innocuous horseplay that captured his consciousness. He turns over. On the other side of the bonfire is the boy, tucked away in the other bed roll. Little dirty-blond head poking out, fabric of the roll bunched up to his chin, young face softened to infancy in slumber. Ren smiles. He can’t believe he ever thought this boy was a threat.

As quietly as he can, Ren gets up to take a piss. He relieves himself at the base of an evergreen, flicking himself dry.

Hux must still be awake in the cave from the telltale motion activated lighting emitting from its mouth. Against his better judgment, Ren makes for the light.

Without as much as a knock Ren breaks the barrier, slinking in the cave like he's not supposed to be there. Hux sits on a woven chair, legs tucked underneath his bottom. There is a pair of reading lenses perched on his nose and he looks through them to the page of his paper book. Handsomely calm, nose buried in his work. “Just because he's forgiven you already, doesn't mean I have to,” he tells Ren without looking up.

Hux uses corrective lenses? And reads books? “Of course you don't, because you're you,” Ren finds himself saying, grin enlivening his lips.

“If at any time you decide we’re too boring for you, just say the word.” Hux turns the page.

Wounded, Ren moves closer. “I'm where I want to be.” He means it.

Hux tucks a thin sheet of metal between his pages to keep his place for later.

His foundations waver when Hux stands, wrapping his sleeved arms around Ren’s middle. He leans into the support. “I’m sorry for slapping your face,” Hux discloses, mumbling against his shoulder.

He’s never heard Hux apologize for physically expressing his feelings. Ever. He’s certain. “I deserved it.”

“You're always so dramatic. Sometimes I feel as if I’m trapped in some opera,” Hux murmurs against his shoulder, a go-to placeholder for the head of someone who rivals Ren’s height.

Ren anchors his hands on Hux’s hips, so slender no matter how many morning exercises he performs. Just the way Ren prefers. “That's why you love me,” he breathes, easier than his scarred lungs had ever allowed him. He can't isolate where the words came from, somewhere deep and private and drowned.

His chest stutters, alarmingly so, but he attributes the reaction to the soft way Hux pulls back and studies him through his little reading lenses.

Hux leans in, bumping their noses together. Ren’s heart flutters strange and abrupt, enough to blossom concern. But Hux doesn't pick up on his confusion, craning their mouths together. Inhaling sharply, Ren's chest thrashes violently, painfully. He shudders, clutching at his heart.

“Ren?” Hux asks worriedly. “Is it your lungs?”

“No, it's—” He doubles over onto Hux, threatening to topple them both to the ground. “It’s something else entirely.”

 

\--

 

Outside the hurricane trap of Ren’s mind, the medic panics at Ren’s rapidly deteriorating blood pressure. He just started up again out of nowhere!

General Organa is nearby, sensing his distress. “What happened?” she begs. After everything, he can't go out like this. Not when there's a glimmer of hope—hope in the form of his son, her grandchild.

“I don't know. But I need everyone to stand back!”

Rey and the general give the medic his space as he intravenously pumps Ren’s system with more drugs.

“We need Luke,” Rey implores. “He's the only one powerful enough to help.” Her rigorous mind probing is doing nothing, her skills too unrefined, Ren’s mind too uncontrollable. “We should tell him. He's gonna want to help.”

“Are you sure about that?” General Organa voices skeptically. She knows her brother better than she knows herself. His guilt has pushed him past where even his own daughter can pull him back from.

“I'm not able to do anything for him. Maybe there's something Marin can do,” she suggests, bracing herself for her aunt’s reaction.

“It's too dangerous.” There was a time when she would have done anything the galaxy demanded of her to bring her son back, but she would never sacrifice Marin. Never.

Rey chastises herself, knowing full well what Kylo Ren’s mind is capable of doing if contacted by an untrained Force user. Marin’s no instrument, no tool to be wielded to accomplish a task.

If this isn't induced by her son’s mutilated mind, then that Hux must be telling the truth about the deathswitch. “Rey, I need you to check on the prisoner. He may be dying.”

“What makes you say that?” she demands.

Her fears have been confirmed. “I thought that bastard was bluffing. He's connected himself with Ben through a trigger in his heart. If Hux’s heart stops, so does Ben’s.”

Rey doesn't wait for further explanation and dashes for the detention level.

 

\--

 

Across the cruiser in front of a large floor to ceiling viewport, Finn approaches the boy. Marin gapes into the glass separating the vacuum of space and his unhinged look of alarm.

“Marin,” Finn says in apprehension.

The bones in Marin’s hands twitch, agonized, though no breaks are inflicted.

It’s not his pain. It’s the prisoner’s.

The prisoner, who made him cry like a waifish baby and hates his father. The prisoner who Grandmother says is a bad man because he’s killed a lot of people.

The same prisoner who he can speak to in such an intimate way. He can’t even talk to Kylo Ren in that way. The prisoner, who is the only person around here who told him a grave, critical truth about his father that no one else had the courage to say. Not even Finn wanted to tell him about Han Solo. He had to beg!

The prisoner’s pain wracks Marin’s bones. Marin blinks at his faint reflection in the transparisteel. “He's hurt. I have to help him.”

“Help who?” Finn kneels down, only to be shoved unceremoniously on his ass. The red candies in his pocket spill all over the pristine floor.

“Forgive me, Finn!” The boy dashes off towards where his heart tells him to run.

“Oh, hell. Marin!” Finn roars from the floor. He gets to his feet to chase after the spritely young boy, running far quicker than he can keep up with.

Astonishing. Finn manages to lose Marin after two twists of the hall. He flops his arms in defeat, panting in and out the recycled air. “The general is gonna _kill_ me,” Finn laments, beginning his search at the medbay.

Marin feels so incredibly guilty for not only pushing Finn, but for disregarding his grandmother's direct instructions to stay put. But he has no other choice!

His heart thumps in tandem to his feet slapping the floor. Fists clenched, Marin approaches the two guards.

“You shouldn't be over here,” the one on the right tells him, hand on his blaster.

Marin closes his eyes, concentrating on the firelight within him and the screams emanating from inside the sealed room. The two guards topple to the ground. Gasping, Marin approaches the doorway. He doesn't know how to open the door. He didn't think this through at all. Perhaps if he thinks hard enough, the door will swipe open.

It doesn't. He panics, the dying screams from the prisoner vibrating through the steel. “This is not good,” Marin whispers.

There's a computer panel with several buttons that he doesn't know what they say, so he pushes them all, frantically trying to get inside.

After several combinations the door hisses open, and he's met with the barrel of the biggest blaster he's ever seen. Marin doesn't hesitate in closing his eyes and making all the angry, blood splattered men fall to the ground in sleep.

He opens his eyes. The prisoner is lying face down, his firelight a dying ebb. “It's gonna be okay,” he promises.

He's never seen such a broken thing before in his life. All of the prisoner’s fingers poke out at odd angles, snapped like twigs. His hair is matted in red from where his skull had been bashed. His stomach a gaping hole, some of his innards showing through. And the bruises and bludgeoning all over make Marin’s heart sag with sorrow.

He has to strategize with what he fixes first. The bleeding will need to be stopped immediately, so he kneels by the prisoner's head to cradle his skull. He’s never healed another person before—just himself, and the baby animals that fall from their nests back on his home planet. The prisoner isn’t much different than them. With the utmost concentration, Marin passes along his firelight to him, pushing and pushing until the prisoner begins to quake in fresh agony.

But it will all be over soon. He whimpers as his powers mend the prisoner's insides until his heart stops trying to beat itself into stillness.

 

\--

 

Finn pants behind the door, peering in so as to not alert the general of his presence. He doesn't see any signs of the boy, only the general’s withering look of relief.

“You sure he's alright?” General Organa asks for the second time. Ben’s heart beeps a steady rhythm.

“He's back online,” the medic confirms.

Worrying her hand on her cheek, General Organa shakes a sigh of relief.

“Rey?” she comms. “Rey, come back!”

In the detention cell, Marin feels Rey’s firelight rapidly approaching. She'll try and stop him from saving the prisoner and he can't let that happen. He shoots the interrogation room’s interior panel with one of the blasters from the sleeping men. “Ouch,” he hisses at the recoil, but the door trundles shut. Talk about lucky.

“Marin!” pounds Rey on the other side. “Stand back!” Marin can't bear to face what Rey and Finn will think of him disobeying to such an extent.

The bright green blade of her lightsaber pierces through the viewport. He doesn't have much time!

Marin growls, forcing his powers to fix each broken piece of the prisoner's hands. One, two, three, four, five fingers. One, two, three, four, five more.

Groaning, Hux looks up at the one who'd flipped him on his back. It's not one of the thugs out for his blood. It’s Marin, squeezing those two green-blue eyes, cradling his hand with his own. This isn't a memory, or a dream, or a mind probing, or a conversation through duraglass. He counts the five little fingers encasing one of his mended hands. This is real.

This could just as well be his death, though he can't imagine how even in death he'd be allowed to be at such peace instead of torment.

What a strange, uncharacteristically self-deprecating thought.

“It's going to be okay,” comes Marin’s accented voice. Hux tries to sit up but he finds he can hardly muster the strength to breathe let alone move.

Rey hurdles over the threshold of the viewport. “Marin, what are you doing?” she manages to ask the sight before her.

There lies the prisoner, hands cradling the boy's face. A great wave of wariness tides over her as Marin accepts the touch with an amazed smile.

“Marin. Get over here,” she orders, eyes never straying from the boy's giddy, wondrous grinning face. Tears sparking the greens of his eyes.

_Marin sees the prisoner, skin glowing in sun-stained youth. He palms his heaving belly in the shores of a bright beach, smiling softly to the horizon. The vision changes to the patient face of a baby, suckling at a bottle. Ogling the prisoner with wide, blue eyes. Those are his own eyes, his infantile hand—fresh and new and without his rippling burn scars—fisting the prisoner’s large finger._

_He’s seeing through his own eyes, feeling his own infantile lips mimic the prisoner’s watery smile._

_The prisoner’s smiling face is gone, replaced by a shadow. A black, obscuring, threatening shadow looming over him—_

Hux passes out before the vision ends, leaving Marin to stare at him with awe.

“Marin, let go of him.” She hasn't been this terrified in years.

“It all makes sense now,” Marin finally acknowledges Rey.

Rey inches closer, ready to lunge. “Please let go of him.”

“He's not dangerous. He's not gonna hurt me.” Marin pets Hux’s forehead.

“Thank you for saving him. You did a good thing. But you need to let go now so you can help me get a doctor for him.”

“I fixed him. He doesn't need a doctor.” Marin checks the seams of the scarification on his stomach. Looks good.

Rey can no longer stand idly by and watch Marin’s dangerous behavior. She puts a hand on his shoulder. “Let's get back to Grandmother.”

“I can't leave him. I need to talk to him when he wakes up,” he says, grin brightening his face.

“Why?” Rey swallows.

“Because he's my father!” Marin exclaims in awe. “I have to know everything about him.”

An overwhelming chill courses her veins. “Marin,” Rey begins carefully, “he can't be. Kylo Ren is your father.”

“I know you don't believe me,” Marin says, looking down to Hux. “But somehow they both are. I can feel it. He sent me a vision, but even before that I felt it.” He rests his scarred hand on Hux’s chest.

Rey can no longer stand this, so she eases Marin to his feet and away from the incapacitated criminal. “You can talk to him later. For now, we need to go.”

“Rey,” Marin struggles in her grip, “I need to talk to him when he wakes up!” She eases her hold but doesn’t let him spring back to the prisoner’s arms. Perhaps he can appeal to her interests as well. “It’s important. Besides, maybe he knows how to help Kylo Ren.”

“We should ask Grandmother what she thinks,” Rey advises, using aid from the Force to help her open the damaged door and move Hux to a new, more secure cell.

Marin picks up Hux’s feet as Rey heaves his shoulders, his bottom dragging against the floor. He feels extremely guilty for disregarding what his grandmother said but it's for a good reason. Hux, the prisoner, his father was dying! What more reason can he need? “She probably won't want me to,” he replies honestly.

“And you know why,” Rey tells him knowingly. “He's a bad man.”

“Maybe he made mistakes. Like Kylo Ren did.” Marin thinks about Han Solo.

Rey settles on the next door down, another interrogation room, this time without a viewport. “Why do you think this man is your father?”

“He is. I felt him tell me the truth through our mental connection. He carried me inside of him. Kylo Ren put me there. They made me together,” Marin says with certainty. His eyes glaze in recollection of the daunting shadow at the end of his vision, but he shakes it off. “Grandmother knows,” he tells her, another suspicion confirmed by the prisoner—his _father_. “She knew since the beginning.”

She has absolutely no idea what to say, what to think of Marin’s confession. Rey locks the door behind them once they deposit the prisoner on the floor of the cell.

“I know you still don't believe me,” Marin sulks once they make their way back to General Organa.

“Marin!” shouts Finn from the mouth of the medbay.

Oh, boy is he in trouble. Marin forces himself to not duck behind Rey’s knees. “I'm so sorry, Finn! I had to!”

“Where was he?” Finn demands to Rey, at the same time she scolds, “You were supposed to be watching him.”

Finn sags. “He got away. He just pushed me and ran off.”

“He pushed _you?”_

“It was a very, very good push,” Finn defends.

“It would have had to be. You could've almost gotten him killed!” Rey can't shake the dread riddling her bones at what Marin told her about the prisoner.

“Please, please don't argue. I'm sorry Finn. You can do what you want with me, if you need to lock me up.” It's only a fair punishment, after being so disobedient.

Finn sighs. “Marin, we're not gonna lock you up. But Rey and I will both have to supervise,” he looks to Rey pointedly.

Marin looks down, feeling spared.

“Finn, I need to talk with you and General Organa,” Rey urges.

“What about him?” Finn looks down at the boy.

“We'll keep him outside. This is important.” Rey kneels low. “Marin—”

“I know, I know. I'll stay put,” Marin urges.

Looking to the boy with weariness, Rey tugs Finn inside. The general sits in a chair beside her son, hand gripping his arm. She can sense Rey’s projections of confusion, betrayal.

“Did you know about Marin? Did you know who his parents were?” Rey demands.

After several beats of silence, General Organa stands. “There was too much at stake. Your existence was already too dangerous to be known. And when Luke sent you away and disappeared himself, I was powerless to find you and bring you home. Just like how I was with Marin. You have to understand.”

“So no one knew? Not even Luke?” asks Rey, trying her best to remain calm but the contempt rolls off her in waves.

“Can one of you please explain what's going on?” Finn slides in, completely lost as to what the Skywalker women are talking about.

Rey crosses her arms, forcing the general to enlighten them on the mess they're in.

General Organa explains how before they found Rey and Luke, Ben had resurfaced for the first time since the slaughter of the Jedi. Rey watches with tight-lipped condemnation. “Lando had rescued them from exile on a remote planet in the Outer Rim. No one knew they'd fathered a child. There was no data or unveiling or any proof he existed. All I had was what Lando told me, and he's no saint but he would not lie about something like this.”

Finn is the most affected by General Organa’s admission. “So you're saying that…that guy. And Kylo Ren. Somehow made a baby together?”

Chewbacca grumbles in confusion, and Finn agrees with the noise wholeheartedly. “You do know that Hux used to be one of the highest ranking members of the First Order, right? How does this make sense? First Order generals don’t go around pushing out powerful Skywalker babies. There’s just no way.” And Hux is a dude. Unless he wasn’t always a dude, which is fine. Still shocking. Finn can’t be the only one who thinks so.

“It’s true. Marin told me,” Rey tells Finn.

“Why is he here, then? Why was the son of the two most powerful members of the First Order living on some desolate planet all by himself?” Finn argues.

“I don’t know,” General Organa shakes her head. “But now you both know how serious this is. We can’t let Marin leave our care.”

Rey swallows, mind bringing her back to her horror from seeing how brightly Marin smiled at the prisoner. “What do we do now?”

“We call Luke. We’re gonna wake his ass up,” the general nods to her son, “and I’m gonna finish my conversation with that prisoner.”

 

\--

 

“I think…I think I’m alright,” Ren pants, scrubbing a hand across his chest. Hux’s spectacles have been knocked crooked by his attack—but whether it was of the heart, the lungs, the mind, he’s uncertain.

Hux tucks away the spectacles. “You sure? Like I told you before, if at any point you think you need medical attention, we can find a discreet port and find you a medic. I can’t have you dying on us.”

Ren thinks to the boy slumbering by the fire. This is them, a unit. No one can bother them here, no army, no Jedi, no Snoke. Snoke isn’t a problem for them anymore but he can’t remember how or why. “I don’t want to go. It’ll pass, like it always does.”

“Until it doesn’t,” Hux crimps his forehead. “Lie down on the cot. I’ll rub your back while you tell me what’s been bothering you.”

Complying, Ren turns his face towards Hux’s shuffling. The cot has a stool nearby, littered with more books and a stack of computers, what might be paper files, folders, and printed photographs. Hux scoots the stool close to comfortably give the massage.

“So spill it. What’s got you upset?” The heels of Hux’s palms rhythmically dig into his stiffness.

Ren groans, unable to hold in the noise. “It’s a combination of things,” he discloses.

“Go on. I hope you’re not gonna wait for my prompting all night.”

“I’ve been thinking about her.”

“Who?”

“My mother.” He’s not averse to acknowledging her existence as he had vehemently been in the past, but can’t recall the reason why. When Hux doesn’t prompt, he continues. “How she’d slap me like you did after throwing away the lightsaber. She’d probably do a lot worse.”

“Is this your way of telling me I remind you of your mother? You must realize how incredibly unsexy that is,” Hux says with snark, massaging lower to the divots in the small of his back.

“Maybe,” Ren grins, always excited to see Hux’s reactions. Hux is largely unfazed, only snorting softly in response. “No, but really. I feel like she’s judging me from afar. You ever get that feeling?”

“Not particularly. Then again I never associated with anything maternal,” he runs his hands up to Ren’s shoulders again, failing to see the irony in his words. He’s basically the mother in their unit, but Ren keeps that thought to himself. Hux’s fingers are like magic, easing the tension with every push and pull. “Is that all it is?”

That's all he can say for right now, so he nods. Luckily Hux takes the hint.

“Well, I'm no expert, but that might be a manifestation of something,” Hux replies.

“Like what?” Ren muffles into the cot under his head.

From nowhere, Hux whacks a hand across Ren’s ass. Ren peers over his shoulder. Hux grins, green eyes twinkling. Ren doesn't recognize the honest glee on his face and a wave of dread and unfamiliarity washes over his senses. A strange reaction to such a beautiful image.

Only to dissipate when Hux leans in to peck a kiss on his cheekbone. “Guilt? Deep-seeded self-loathing? Not even I have all the answers. Sleep now. We can talk more about it in the morning.”

Ren twists to kiss him on the lips, releasing him with a lump in his throat.

Hux smiles down at him, soft in the way it makes him look ten years younger. He resumes his reading with his spectacles perched on his nose, picking up where he’d left off. Ren falls asleep to the sound of page-turning.

 


	12. Chapter 12

Luke Skywalker greets his two Jedi apprentices, one his child by blood and one his ward through circumstance. Both Finn and Rey rival his height, but the height of his estranged apprentice, Ben, now Kylo Ren, far surpasses his. After waving to Marin, sitting patiently in the waiting area, it’s the first thing he notices while walking into the medbay’s confined space.

“Where’s Leia?” he asks his apprentices, eyes never leaving Kylo Ren’s peaceful face. Must have been over twenty years since he’s been in the same system as Ben, let alone seen him with his own eyes.

“She’s with the prisoner. He woke up before you arrived,” Rey supplies. She’d already briefed him of the events that transpired on his trip over here: Kylo Ren resurfacing along with his ex-First Order partner, the tempest Ren’s mind is trapped in. And the fact that the two most vile human beings the galaxy spat out are the biological parents of the sweetest, strangest little boy she’s ever known, the beacon of light and promise, and possibly the last chance her hapless cousin will ever have at retribution.

 _My, how the galaxy still surprises me, after everything,_ Luke had told Rey over the comm. Wistful bewilderment wasn’t the reaction she had anticipated in regards to Marin’s pedigree and General Organa’s dishonesty about knowing of his existence. Perhaps Luke can breathe a sigh of relief knowing he’s not the only Skywalker born of dark-sided genocidal maniacs. General Organa, too. Yet the dark side seems to skip a generation, if that’s any true consolation.

Luke pulls the bed away from the wall, careful not to upset the monitors around Ren. He walks behind the head of the bed now that there’s room to stand, placing one metal and one flesh hand on either of Ren’s temples and closing his eyes to probe.

After a nail-biting silence and brief moments of Rey and Finn exchanging worried glances as they often do, Luke hisses and snaps his eyes open. “You know, Marin might be the only one who can help. Like you said,” he tells Rey. It’s true. She had told him how Ren’s mind was a slosh that only a miracle would pull him out of.

But if Luke can’t even get through to him, then how could an untrained Force user even begin to, without getting hurt? “I’m not sure that’s safe. He’s untouched by the dark side. General Organa doesn’t want to risk it.”

It’s Finn’s turn to weigh in. “Look, I know I’m not as strong with the Force as you both, but maybe this isn’t something we can help. Maybe this is being done from within. And can only be helped from within. I know we don’t know what brought it on in the first place, but there just might not be anything we can do. And Rey’s right. Is it worth risking his life?” He’s just a kid. Marin isn’t tainted, even after his brushes with Snoke.

Luke nods once, trusting his apprentices’ judgements. “You’re both right. Although, if this wasn’t brought on internally, maybe someone is causing this.”

“Hux?” Finn asks, tone dropping low. That dude is evil! People _cannot_ ignore that fact because he popped out a cute kid.

“No, by someone who’s all powerful with the Force.”

Rey gets ahead of the conversation. “But why would Snoke do this to his own apprentice? It doesn’t make sense. Why after all this time is he trapping him in his own mind? Leading him to capture?”

“That, I can’t tell you,” Luke untucks himself from behind the bed. “But if we cut him off from the Force, maybe that’ll give us our answer.”

“How do we do that?” Finn asks, hands on his hips.

Rey answers for Luke. “Force inhibitors. Rare to come by, and although powerful they’re easy to outmaneuver if you know how. If we could even find some, it might not work.”

Finn thinks of Han Solo, who told him to never say something’s impossible before you’ve tried. “Would they happen to look like a collar?”

“They could,” Luke nods. “Why?” Luke had only heard of ones used to harbor Jedi during the Clone Wars by the Sith. They were shackles that inhibited any and all access to the Force. Even the most skilled Jedi like his first master Obi-Wan Kenobi hadn’t been able to break from the prison.

“Poe showed me what weapons Hux had on him when we captured him. Hux wouldn’t tell him what they were and Poe asked me as well but I couldn’t figure them out. They weren’t a First Order issue, so I assumed they were important. Gimme a second.” Finn sprints to the docking bay where Poe frequents.

Marin watches Finn run off. Rey and now Luke are still inside with his father, Kylo Ren, who he has yet to see. He could break the rules again, and get away with it too, but he feels terrible about doing so in the first place. And he’s not sure he wants to meet Kylo Ren just yet.

All this had happened so fast—first meeting his family then learning who his other parent is. He’s afraid that this is all an elaborate dream and he’ll soon wake by the fire, watching the embers fly into the sky. Not only will meeting Kylo Ren mark the end of the mystery, the adventure, but it’ll all be real after he meets him. Kylo Ren’s feelings towards him and towards being a parent will solidify. There will be no going back if Kylo Ren hates him, something he’d learned to be a possibility after Hux had told him how Han Solo died.

Hux. What a mystery in and of himself! He’s never heard of a Hux before today. And never known in all his readings for a man to carry a child like a woman could. But there are many more books to be read. He wants to learn more about Hux and how he came to be here, captured, and united with him after all these years.

He wants to know how Hux went from being the glowing, smiling man in his vision, holding his infantile fingers with his own—to the sneering, angry man with bloody palms. He wants to know how he ended up out of Hux’s arms and onto his home planet, the one with the cold winters and long paper books.

He projects himself across the ship to Hux in his new cell. Marin felt him wake up, but Grandmother was there to talk to him about the gang that tried to kill him. He can see her clear through Hux’s eyes, and can feel Hux’s suspicion that he’s being listened in on. But this doesn’t stop him. Marin remains listening as if he’s perched behind Hux’s back, peering over his shoulders.

“Marin knows now. About you. He wants to talk to you,” Marin hears his grandmother tell Hux.

Marin feels Hux swallow around his dry throat. “So let him.”

“You know I can’t do that.” Marin wants to know why Hux begrudgingly agrees with his grandmother’s forbiddance, but doesn't admit that he’s done so.

His grandmother stands. “The men who attacked you have been moved, and there will be a guard that I can trust posted outside this door. Don't make me regret giving you protection.”

When she leaves Hux slumps against the chair. There are no windows to his new room, the only objects being a table and two chairs. And the can of slosh General Organa tossed to him to rehydrate and his discarded, bloodstained clothes he was allowed to replace with new ones—a pair of dark blue sweats with a little Resistance emblem on the shoulder. The new clothes dwarf him but supply him with much needed warmth.

Hux is bombarded with the memory of Ren holding him hostage in a similar room, though at least that one had a refresher.

He folds his arms together, thinking of Marin. He can feel him near but doesn't know what that means.

“Your beard. It reminds me of Chewie,” comes an unmistakable young voice next to him. Marin smiles excitedly, putting a mental-hand on Hux’s forearm.

Hux holds in a tight breath but doesn't shake Marin off. He's not real. Marin’s projecting himself through his Force-sensing. Hux is glad Ren never learned how to do that. He’s also glad that Marin can’t read his thoughts. And who the hell is Chewie?

Marin speaks again before Hux can greet him. “My name, that was from you, right? Not Kylo Ren. I felt that my name came from my father but I originally thought that it was from Kylo Ren. But it feels like it's from you,” he babbles, far too excited to meter his words. His name came from Hux just like he came from Hux.

Hux stiffens. “Yes, it was from me.”

“What does it mean? Does it mean anything?”

“It's your name. What more do you want?” Hux grumbles, sentiment weakening his resolve. Again. Hux changes the subject before he can lash out. “How did you get here? With these...people,” Hux’s nose crimps. The Resistance emblem burns on his shoulder.

The boy scoots on his bottom, giddy. “Grandmother had a vision and sent Rey and Finn to find me. But she brought me to you! I felt the truth from you. You told me I came from you. In here,” he pokes at Hux’s newly healed stomach.

Hux swallows. There's no sense in shoving the boy away. He's not real. “Looks like you got it all figured out.”

Marin climbs on the table. “Of course I don't. I know almost nothing about you.” He dissects his phrasing, so as to not anger Hux like he so clearly had the last time they spoke. “Why were those men trying to kill you?” he asks innocently.

“Because they think I’m evil,” Hux drones after several beats.

“You don’t seem evil,” Marin says. Hux is slight like Rey but taller than anyone he knows, except Chewie. His bright orange hair is unlike anything Marin’s ever seen in a lifeform before and his stomach looks to be the perfect circumference for hugging. Hux talks with him, notices him. He gives him the time of day. Maybe he’ll let him hug him. “What did you do to make them think you’re evil?”

“I punished the disobedient and destroyed the Republic homeworld along with everyone on it. Naturally, the Resistance disagreed.”

Marin tries to fathom the implications of destroying an entire world. “Did they all deserve it?” Marin asks.

There it is. The empathy. The reasoning one does when faced with an ethical dilemma that afflicts someone they care for. Hux can see the concern in Marin’s eyes, can feel the conflict within him.

“Yes,” he believes.

“Did Kylo Ren disagree, is that why you’re enemies?”

Back to Ren. Of course. “We were on the same side. Ours was and personal conflict, and still is.”

Marin huffs, trying to control his questions. Hux looks back at him as if expecting a storm. What Marin really wants to know is how he went from being a baby in Hux’s arms to a little boy on a lonesome planet. He fears that if he’s not careful with his words, he’ll make him yell about his feelings like when he taunted Hux about his mother. He wouldn’t have done that if he knew Hux was the one to carry him like a mother would. Then again, he wouldn’t have tried to be so cruel if Hux hadn’t started it.

But the thirst for approval drives him, steering his accusations and demands away from his interrogation. “I didn’t—I don’t know why Supreme Leader Snoke never mentioned you.”

Hux’s skin crawls at the mention of that beast.

“But what I really don't understand how you and Kylo Ren made me if you really are arch enemies.” The boy holds his knees with his hands, patient for Hux’s explanation of his all-inclusive question.

There are many ways a man can make a child. Crude and immoral and adulterous ways, like the way Hux came into this galaxy from the womb of a servant girl. Or the violent and degrading way Ren forced Hux to carry their child.

In a remarkable act of sentiment, Hux omits the truth, begging to not be as transparent as he seems to spread before the boy. “We used to be friends.”

“ _Just_ friends?” Marin’s read about all kinds of dramatic love stories. Maybe his parents were married and happy before they were enemies.

“Are you serious?” Hux asks, incredulous.

Marin frowns, comically so, in the way Ren would when he didn't think he was showing the expression so nakedly. “Well, why aren't you friends anymore?”

“Because he took what power I had and tossed me on some faraway planet.”

“Power?” Marin’s eyes widen.

Hux has been anticipating this moment for longer than he’d care to admit. “I used to hold the title of the highest ranking general in the First Order.”

Marin’s lips form a small gasp. “A general? Like Grandmother?”

Hux snorts. “There's an enormous difference between the leader of a disorderly militia composed of cowards and criminals, and the highest ranking military officer in the galaxy's future governing body.”

“You really have no idea what the Resistance is really like,” Marin says after a moment of rolling Hux’s words over his mind. They’re made up of heroes like Poe Dameron and warriors like Rey and Finn.

“And neither do you if you think they're worth your time,” Hux scoffs. “You don't need these people.”

Marin casts his eyes low. “So you do want me?”

There's no way Hux can answer his question, because he doesn't have one. “That's not up to me,” he says levelly.

“Like how it wasn't up to you when you sent me away?” Marin’s voice is small, his eyes remaining low. “That’s why I grew up where I did, so I would be ready to train under Kylo Ren?” That’s his purpose, as Supreme Leader Snoke often said.

Hux stands up, no longer in check of his composure. Abandoning the mental projection of his child squatting on the table. “You don't know that. Maybe someone stole you from me,” Hux argues. Admitting aloud the truth but presenting it as a hypothetical.

Marin thinks back to the shadow in his vision. “If you really were the all-powerful general, you wouldn't have let anyone take me,” Marin presses. He doesn’t want to make Hux angry again but he has to know the truth.

There's not much detail to describe about the wall Hux is boring his eyes onto. “It wasn't my decision to make,” Hux repeats.

“Who made the decision?”

Hux wraps his arms around himself, longing for another jacket. “Kylo Ren. The only reason you came to be was to serve Snoke and the First Order.”

“If that's true, then Snoke wouldn't have left me,” Marin says after a while of knee rubbing. Everyone left him, it would seem.

“I can't tell you why he did, or why that snake does anything he does, for that matter.”

“I think he left because he didn't see as much potential in my power as he thought he would. But I am useful,” Marin says defensively, as if Hux too will agree with Snoke’s scrutiny. “I saved you from that gang. Nobody else could have healed your bones.”

Hux turns his cheek. “Are you looking for praise? Approval? A machine could have done what you did.”

“But, it didn’t.” Marin shrugs. “A ‘thank you’ would be nice.”

“And that's what you're here for?”

“I still want to know more about you. And Kylo Ren, too, but I plan on asking him properly when he wakes up.” Marin dangles his legs off the table, free and childlike. “So where’re you from?”

Hux will humor the boy. There’s little else to do. “A little rainy planet that you've never heard of. You?”

“I dunno the name, but it's cold and there are many rock formations. And grasslands. I don't ever want to go back. It's the loneliest place in the galaxy.”

Lips pursing, Hux fights against the sinking feeling in his heart. “So you have no memory of Kylo Ren or Snoke? They didn’t raise you?”

“None at all, except Snoke’s voice in my head. And I have very good memory. I remember every year how the lands change and which places grew the best leafy foods. And I would try to play with the caretaker droids but they were never programmed for fun. They gave me tools and useful things, though.”

Hux’s lip curls. Droids? Tools? “You find your own food?”

“I find my own everything. Until now. Finn even gave me these little red dots that fill my tongue with a spicy sweetness.”

A life of squalor is no life at all. In a tremendous act of selflessness, Hux allows himself to be grateful Marin has found the Resistance, the brigade of traitors and thieves. But it's only a matter of time before the true nature of the enemy will be revealed, pushing Marin back towards his people. Towards Hux. In a realization that was never really a realization at all, Hux succumbs to the sentiment, a feeling that had never faded if not gotten stronger.

“Now that you've found your family,” Hux finds himself asking, begging his voice not to waver on the last word, “where will you go from here?”

Marin thins his eyes, deep in thought. A little embarrassed to admit his hopes. “I was thinking we could all be together. I know you're a prisoner, but maybe one day—”

Hux’s blood pressure heightens. “Don't be so naive. You'll only end up hurting, and you'll only have yourself to blame.” He knows from experience.

Sullen, Marin swings his legs some more. Then cocks his head. “How did you and Kylo Ren meet?”

“Not this again. There is no ‘me and Ren,’ and there never was,” he bristles.

“I wasn’t meaning anything by it. It’s just a question. Can I call you ‘Father’? Grandmother said to call her ‘Grandmother,” the boy asks innocently.

The very idea of Marin calling him ‘Father’ frightens and disgusts him. These past several days have been far too dramatic. Figures this would happen once he reconnected with Ren. “Then what will you call Kylo Ren?” he asks instead, admitting aloud the truth of their disjointed family.

“Hm. Good point. I could call you ‘Mother,’” Marin smirks, looking entirely too much like Ren.

Hux barely contains the eye-roll, ignoring the tangent altogether. “Kylo Ren and I met aboard the Finalizer, where we worked. About two years before you were born,” he adds, to put the timeline into perspective for both himself and Marin.

“The Finalizer? Is that anything like the Millennium Falcon?”

The ship the boy’s referring to sounds familiar. Probably a target of his once or twice. “The Finalizer is the largest star destroyer within the entire First Order fleet. It was under my command up until my exile. It was the both of ours, I’ll admit that, right after,” Hux pauses, “you were sent away.”

They swapped out a child for a battlecruiser, it would seem. But this does not matter to Marin, who perks up. “Oh, I remember! Kylo Ren’s ship—it was yours, too? Supreme Leader Snoke said Kylo Ren was in charge of thousands of officers and Stormtroopers.”

Ren’s ship? As if. “Well, daily operation and crises control was entirely run by me,” Hux defends himself in front of the Ren-ling. “Whatever Kylo Ren spent his days doing was almost a complete mystery. When he wasn’t tearing the ship apart in his tantrums, he brooded around and assaulted our troops in pointless bouts of petulance.”

Hux is exaggerating. Ren had a very important job. He was in control of ground forces when they went planetside for missions, a task Hux would never dare attempt due to the sheer amount of unforeseen variables that may cause bodily injury, capture, or death. And Ren only had a handful of tantrums, but Marin needs to know how truly embarrassing it should be to have Kylo Ren as your father. “He’d have these fits when things wouldn’t go as planned. There’d be screaming, too. And flailing.”

The goofy image makes Marin laugh. Hux has really only made one other person laugh before—Ren, in another lifetime, and enjoyed doing it then. Marin’s no different.

“So, you were partners?” Marin asks after he sobers. “Did you ever do anything together? Anything?”

Hux scrutinizes the boy’s open, hopeful expression. “Something like that,” he settles with. “We did occasionally share missions before we were in command of the Finalizer.”

“What kind of missions?” Marin’s interrogation shows no sign of ceasing.

“Some crucial diplomatic missions that Snoke thrusted on us. Ren never really saw the use of diplomacy if there weren’t any weapons involved. But the key is that you bring out the big gun _after_ they’ve already made their decision to rebel. If you do it before in order to quicken their decision making, they’re only allying with you to avoid persecution in that moment. Then they’ll have time once you leave to come up with a plan to cross you. True allegiance only comes when they see a demonstration of your power, when you set an example. And when everyone else accepts to succumb, that’s when you’ve won.”

Marin crinkles his brow. “That’s brilliant.”

Hux’s lip quirks involuntarily. “Your father said he never saw the difference.” He doesn’t catch his own phrasing but it’s too late to take it back.

“Maybe he is a little, you know. Slow on the strategizing.” Marin makes a funny little hand motion by his head and pulls a face, and it’s Hux’s turn to laugh—a small, breathy laugh through his nose.

“I’m sure when the time comes, you’ll see the extent of it. When he finally decides to wake up.”

“I hope so,” Marin puts his palms on his face, a demonstration of his anxiety on the subject.

 

\--

 

_Kylo Ren has had this dream before. It plagues him like a chronic illness, riddling his bones with its degenerating affects. A relentless repetition, his mind poisons him as every experience of the dream leaves no memory of the last. An endless loop impossible to break free from._

_The heated waft from the bowels of the oscillator, the unbridled fury erupting from his core. The scorch of the lightsaber in his hand._

_The ending is the same every time._

_Han Solo's calm hand on his cheek. The blinding blue that floods his senses as he releases Solo’s body to the pull of gravitation below._

Around him the cyclical dream blinks away.

In the pit of Ren’s mind, the boy startles Ren out of his sleep. “Father, get up. You’ve been sleeping past sunrise. Again,” he exasperates.

Ren squirms in the cot away from the aggravation.

“He seems to not want to listen to either of us,” Ren hears Hux along with some scraping and clinking—the sounds of a morning routine. Ren turns to the noises, blinking at the boy.

The spark-like glint of a dagger in the boy’s hand catches his tired eye. He stiffens like a trapped prey, the fog of sleep clearing in the scourging panic. But the boy moves back to the table, chopping up some orange vegetables. Not a dagger, but a cooking knife. They’re at home, not a warzone.

“I can get up on my own schedule,” Ren grumbles, sitting up, shaking off the ridiculous hallucination.

“You need at least _some_ structure,” says the boy, sounding all too much like Hux.

Hux is sliding in the boy’s sliced vegetables in to the mouth of the stewing pot—balanced on two crates to function as a table top—and the boy pushes in cuts of leafy vegetables right after. He sprinkles in the salt and spice, already knowing the proper ratios. Ren watches the two work without any words exchanged.

Ren comes up behind Hux to interrupt with his arms on his hips. “Good morning, lazy,” Hux name-calls playfully. Ren allows this, longing for any distraction to relieve the tension of dread coiled in his gut.

He snakes his palms under Hux’s loose-fitting shirt, fingering the smooth patch of skin striping low on his abdomen, the surgical scar only visible through touch. He runs his thumb across the hairless regenerated flesh. “Good morning yourself,” he tells Hux, digging his chin into Hux’s bony shoulder. Hux hums, leaning back into his weight.

Ren finally understands what wholeness carried in the word ‘home’ entails.

“Your son found these vegetables, all by himself,” Hux praises. The boy grins brightly to his parents. Ren finds himself grinning back. He forces his eyes from the knife in the boy’s hand. He’s safe here. They’re home.

After breakfast, Ren goes outside to resume his hunt for the tossed lightsaber while Hux and the boy clean up—organizing the cooking tools, the clothes in baskets, the furniture back in place.

This morning is a chilly one, but that doesn’t prevent Ren from scouring the lake for signs of the lost lightsaber. After an hour or so of diving, Ren takes a break at the shore to renew his energy and warm up by the blazing bonfire.

Only to have his prayers answered when the lightsaber—distinct retractable blade holster glinting in the daylight—lies at the lakeshore.

Tucked under the boy’s bedroll.

Ren picks it up, testing the plasma blade. It ignites, brilliant blue assaulting his vision. Blood drains from his face. He feels impaled.

“Oh, stars! I didn’t realize you’d be in the water again so early. I wanted to surprise you. I found it!” shouts the boy from the mouth of the cave, excited and proud. Hux follows after him. Not running as the boy does, but trailing, giving them their space.

Ren swallows, brandishing the plasma blade in front of him in disbelief. “How did it get over here? How is it functional?” It was waterlogged for over a day.

“It just needed a little drying. I wanted to be sure it worked before I showed it to you,” the boy explains, innocent and bright.

Ren lowers the saber but leaves the lone blade activated. “It was by your bedroll.”

The boy frowns. “I was hiding it because I wanted to wait until—”

“You were hiding it?” he accuses, struck with awe and disbelief. The dagger was a hallucination. The boy means him no harm. The boy means him no harm. The boy means him no harm.

“Ren, what’s the matter?” Hux demands, sensing his alarm.

The boy looks to the bedroll, then to the lake, at a loss. “I wanted to surprise you.”

Ren stares at the boy, trying his hardest to read through him. Turning up nothing, devoid of presence. He’s shrouded from him in some way. Much like when his powers hadn’t worked against him when he woke up from his accident.

This is a ruse, a deception. The boy is disguising himself. Ren glowers into the blue plasma of the blade. Diving for the lightsaber must have all been part of the boy’s ploy so he could distract him just long enough to—

“Put that down. Now,” he hears Hux order. He feels him ease closer, though his voice is distant.

Like the voice of a memory. A vision.

Ren flicks the trigger for the bayonet on the side, and with conclusiveness, it springs out of the trap.

A memory. _He extends his hand, holding the lightsaber hilt like a peace offering. Han Solo's calm hand on his cheek. The blinding blue that floods his senses as he releases Solo’s body to the pull of gravitation below._

A vision. _The cool, prod of a lightsaber greets Ren’s back from behind. The metal blade of the bayonet an icicle, slicing through his spine and out the front side of him. It breaks the skin of his son who holds him tightly, chest to chest, but this matters little to him as he twists the blade within Ren with finality._

A violent, sordid scream claws its way out from inside his throat as Ren thrashes the lightsaber in a blind fit of madness. Pure reaction, destruction, chaos from fear. He hits something thin and breakable but that doesn’t stop him. It isn’t until he screams himself into breathlessness that he falls to his knees.

Ren comes to, gasping at the ground. The lightsaber lies in the gravel, plasma blade hissing against the rock. He turns his head.

Hux lays on his back, stomach a scorched maw. The boy’s in stunned tears, desperately gripping Hux’s head. “No, no, no,” sobs the boy.

Ren scrambles over, slicing his palms on the stones. He arrives at Hux’s side just in time to put a hand to his chest and witness the light escape his dazed green eyes. Feel his heart’s last beat. The boy screams, an identical sound to Ren’s own bellow.

Wheezing, Ren’s heart stills within his ribcage, ceasing the flow of blood to his organs.

But he doesn’t drop to the ground to follow what darkness awaits Hux. Instead, the world around him loses all color, all sensation, except for the black barrenness within.

Ren is a golem, a man without a beating heart. He clamors for the hissing lightsaber, aiming it at the sobbing boy.

 

\--

 

Ren’s tempest shatters around him, lungs heaving. Eyes splitting open, senses bleached by the white light.

Rey backs away from Ren once the Force inhibitor collar is secure around his neck.

Ren sags to the bed, blinking above at the lights. He can’t move his arms or legs, or sense anything around him. He feels dead, the headiness of the emptiness drowning what energy he had. Relying on sight to survey his surroundings, Ren counts not one, not two, but three of the most loathsome characters in his life. The scavenger—her forehead pinched with concern and trepidation. The traitor—his hand on the hilt of his blaster, ready to aim and fire like the soldier he never was. And the last Jedi—his first master, looking every bit as old as his bones are crippled.

A fourth enters his line of vision. Organa—the woman he’s hated most of all.

“Where’s the boy?” Ren croaks to all four of them, voice cracking from disuse.

Rey’s heart pounds, hand on her lightsaber.

Growling, Ren pulls at his bonds, reaching out with all his strength. He knows not how he got here, trapped in the hands of the enemy, but he knows he must find him. He knows he must find the boy.

_“Where is he?!”_


	13. Chapter 13

 

“Where is he?” Ren hisses, deadly.

“It’s just us here,” Rey tells him, standing her ground.

Ren growls like a trapped rabid animal, encouraging the bonds to break, but they don’t do as much as creak. “ _Where is the boy?!_ I know you have him! Where did you take him?!”

Rey forces herself to not jump from the volume of his bellowing, the manic violence in which he tries to get free. “It’s only us! Calm yourself,” she orders, voice unwavering. Finn nods. He’s got Rey’s back.

Seething, Ren continues his wriggling. His greasy, unwashed hair flops around his face in a muddy halo. Finn moves closer to Rey, apprehension falling when he sees how futile Ren’s efforts are. Regardless, Finn prefers unconscious Kylo Ren.

Ren screams again, hoarsely with rage. Red oozes from his wrists where the magcuffs pin him.

“Calm down,” General Organa barks to her son. “Rey…”

Holding out her hand, Rey sinks Ren down into the bed with the Force, effectively stilling his tantrum.

“Let go of me, rat!” Ren froths. His scarred lungs strangle him, enhancing the suffocation of the collar.

“Not until you calm down,” Rey says levelly.

General Organa looks to her son, caged like a beast, cornered, stripped. Her soul aches. “Leave us. Please,” she tells the rest.

After a moment, Rey withdraws her hand. Ren slumps to the bed, drained.

The three Jedi file out, finding Marin crouched on the opposite wall.

“Is he okay? I heard shouting,” Marin says, hushed so as to not disturb Kylo Ren on the other side of the wall.

Rey’s resolve chips. “He woke up, but he’s still gravely ill. He’s a danger to himself.”

“And to me?” Marin knew this would be a possibility, though he prayed it wouldn’t.

She nods, on the verge of tears.

Without warning, she kneels low and wraps Marin in an embrace. A warm, full feeling overcomes Marin. He’s infinitely grateful for the contact.

Rey pulls back, hands bracing his tiny shoulders. “I know it’s hard waiting. Trust me. I know all about waiting,” she smiles, somber. “But you have to promise me to not go in there. Not yet. Soon, but not yet. Please. Promise me,” she begs.

Accepting, Marin nods. “I understand.” He looks up to Finn and the back of Luke Skywalker’s head, the two conversing. “What about Hux? Can I visit him?”

Rey didn’t know it was possible for her heart to break all over again. “Marin, I’m so sorry.”

Marin looks down. “Can I have another hug?”

She gladly obliges.

 

\--

 

Ren thrashes one last time before succumbing, melting flat into the bed.

The suffocation of the Force inhibitor swallows his senses. Accustomed to the crippling effects of these devices, Ren focuses inward, calming his lungs. He fails to mollify his wheezing, chest splitting with every breath. All he can see is the light leaving Hux’s eyes. All he can feel is his blood in his hands.

There's no indication of how or when he'd been captured, his memory blanking. The last thing he remembers is the light leaving Hux and the terror reflecting in the eyes of his son. The boy must be here! Somehow the Resistance found them. He has to know Hux didn’t _die_ just so the boy could escape.

The boy hid the lightsaber so that he could strike him down when he’d least expect it. He did the right thing in confronting him. Yet agony lances him. Guilt works furiously to dissolve what anger and betrayal he felt from the boy’s deception. None of it feels right anymore, now that Hux is gone.

Desperate to make sense of it all, Ren scours his surroundings for details. By now the scavenger, the traitor, and the Jedi have left the room—a medical recovery room aboard a Resistance cruiser by the look of the withering of the walls—leaving him alone with Organa, the vile Resistance general.

Ren ignores her. He senses nothing, not even the thrum of his own heart. Logic tells him it's the inhibitors, but when he closes his eyes he sees the blue of the Jedi’s blade unrelenting as it cleaves through Hux’s abdomen.

There’s always been a part of him that surrenders to irrationality in times of high stress. He’ll admit as much to himself but never aloud. But he never thought, he never _imagined_ he would hurt Hux, that he could be capable of killing him—

He focuses inward, coiling around the heaviness in his gut. Lungs rattling, he eyes the shackles securing his ankles. They'd even taken his boots, his feet bare, long toes twitching. The thin fabric of the medical gown does nothing to ease him, his skin crawling at the thought of any Resistance scum changing him while being transported here.

The general drags the chair closer to the bed, where her son lies bound and chest heaving.

“I spent years thinking about what I could have done differently. When you were home,” she tells the side of Ren’s face. His left side, the cheek without the scar. “All in vain. Because there's nothing I can do to change what's happened.”

Ren turns his head completely opposite her direction. Silent save for his wheezing, petulant like a child caught in his lie.

The general may never be able to let go of the anger. She seethes and seethes and _seethes_ with it, thrumming like a dark side wielder. Like Vader once seethed, burning like lava flow. Ben was given the opportunity to come home. Hand in hand with his father. But in murdering Han he destroyed what connection he had left to him, obliterated whatever love was hidden in his twisted heart.

However the rage she’s harbored for years could never devolve into hatred, an impossibility in her heart as his mother. Her only hope, their final hope, is that Ben will be able to feel the same for his son. “I'm sorry. For everything.” She'd give anything for him to reciprocate.

But no apology from her son comes. Instead a small noise huffs out his nose through his rattling, a noise she can only interpret as a laugh.

“I'm giving you the opportunity to come home, Ben.”

Ren jolts in his bonds, body reacting to the memory of the last time that name had been used on him. A memory that plagues him in his dreams and reality.

General Organa stands. “Your son's waiting to see you, when you're ready. Just on the other side of that door.” She looks to Ren to gauge his reaction but he behaves as if he hadn’t heard, maintaining the laborious breaths. “He's a good kid. Don't make the same mistake I did.” With that, she leaves Ren by himself.

 

\--

 

Rey said he couldn't talk to Kylo Ren or to Hux, because they both pose a danger to him. Marin tells this to Hux through the mental connection he forged in secrecy, placing himself so Hux sees him sitting against the wall of the interrogation room.

“I don't think you're dangerous. Not to me,” he says to Hux, who sits cross-legged next to him. “You're the only one around here who doesn't treat me like a baby.”

Hux snorts. He’d never admit it but Hux had kept his sanity by revisiting the image of the baby Ren-ling in his time of exile from the First Order. One of his many coveted weaknesses he gained away from the Order and from Ren.

Marin scoots closer to Hux. He gives Marin no reason to do otherwise. “He's awake, you know. They got him to wake up.”

Hux gawks. “As of when?”

“Um. Like, last night.”

“Oh, this ought to be good. Has he broken out yet?”

“No. Rey said that he's a danger to himself so they had to lock him down onto his bed. I'm worried. He was screaming. Something’s wrong with him.”

“Or maybe he's screaming because they strapped him to a bed. Are you going to advocate for his release?” Hux asks. Hoping to have made some impression on the boy's motivations.

“I trust their judgment. If they say it's for his own good, then it is,” Marin nods.

“What exactly have they done to earn your trust?” Hux demands, not unkindly.

“They're my family. They wouldn't lie.” It's as simple as that.

Hux grimaces. “They lied about you and about me. Your _grandmother_ knew I carried you.”

Marin squints in thought, weighing the conflict within him. “She probably had a good reason for doing so.”

“Or she’s just a liar,” Hux counters.

“It's not like you were outright in saying you gave birth to me when I came to you first,” Marin tosses back. _And why you won’t admit you let me go because you didn’t want me,_ Marin wants to spit. But he keeps the weaponized accusation to himself, for he fears Hux’s real answer. That his parents never truly wanted him. That they just wanted a pawn to serve the First Order. And while there’s honor in a life devoted to order, he longs to believe there could be something more.

Damn, Marin is right. Hux stifles the shame in being caught by his own flesh and blood. “So if they told you not to, you wouldn't let us go?”

“Why would you want to go? I'm here. I'm staying with them to train in the ways of the Jedi,” Marin explains, a bit irritated. “I'm going to get you out, but the right way. If I let you go, they'll never forgive me. I'll be a traitor.”

Grimace deepening, Hux swallows Marin’s words like a dry pill. “And what do you suppose is the ‘right’ way?” he sneers.

“Rey told me they are hoping Kylo Ren has a change of heart, and if he does, it'll be safe for me to meet him. So as long as you do the same, you'll be okay.”

Hux can't believe the utter naivety in this boy. “No one here wants the same for me. Believe it. Don't you remember how they tried to kill me?”

“Grandmother sent those men away. She's protecting you. Don't you see?”

The monitor from the deathswitch in his heart twinges from the suggestion. In an act of sentiment Hux doesn't confess the real reason General Organa has him protected, to coddle the life of her hapless son.

“You're a part of the family,” Marin smiles, hopeful and bright like sunlight.

The door to the interrogation room trundles open and Marin’s visage evaporates, Hux blinking desperately at where he once sat.

It's the scavenger girl, Rey. The girl Ren had been fixated with and attempted to turn in a half ditch effort to please Snoke one last time, leading to Starkiller’s destruction. Even with his minute sensing he can feel her relationship with the Force, her connectivity more whole and reciprocal than anything he felt in regards to Ren’s.

She’s Marin’s family, as the boy told him. In a private thought, Hux wonders how the family tree sprawls, how his relation associates with hers.

Rey approaches the crouched prisoner, fisting her lightsaber hilt. He stares down his nose at her, waiting.

“Last night,” she speaks, hand braced on the hilt, “Kylo Ren woke up from his coma. And he’s having trouble with his breathing. It’s getting really bad. We have medicine that might relax his lungs but he won’t let anyone administer it.”

Hux blinks, stomach rumbling idly as background noise.

“We don’t want to force it on him, either. He’s restrained and General Organa is trying to calm him enough to talk. But he hasn’t said a word. It would be in your best interests to help,” Rey straightens her stance, confident, authoritative before the First Order war criminal.

Hux untucks and lolls his legs to the side to prevent them from falling asleep. “Would it?”

“Yes. General Organa said you have every intention of trading enemy intelligence for leniency when we surrender you to the New Republic Supreme Court.”

“The only reason we were captured is because I couldn’t get him to give up Snoke’s location. How is now any different?” Hux scoffs, giving Rey a half-truth. A damn-near full truth, if not for the fact that Ren was on his way to Snoke—for Hux and Hux alone—when he lost consciousness, thus leading to capture.  

Rey’s face doesn’t change. “Help administer the medicine first. And get him to drink something if you can. We’ll cross that bridge later.”

The proposition entices him. “He might get even more irate if I’m there,” Hux admits. It’s true. Ren has probably realized by now that Hux had gotten them captured—even though it was to save his life.

Hux stands, allowing himself to be escorted by the Resistance rebel.

“Hands out,” she instructs before he can take another step. Rey pulls out a small pair of magcuffs, one with a thin wire link between each manacle. The cuffs go on his wrists, detaining them to his front.

FN-2187’s on the other side of the door, arms crossed like the grunt he is. Hux spares him a glare as he’s lead to the medbay.

They approach the door. _You sure about this?_ Finn sends to Rey through their connection.

 _No, but we’ve tried everything. Unless you want to try holding Kylo Ren down again,_ she replies.

Finn nods. “It’s all you, man,” he slaps Hux’s bony back, jarring his rows of teeth together with his overzealous smack.

Hux curls his lip, not bothering to waste his breath on a retort for the traitor.

“Do you have the medicine?” Rey asks the exhausted medic.

Wearily, he passes the cylindrical applicator to her. “There’s a button on the side to administer the dose. Careful around the eyes. Only get it in his mouth, but he has to breathe it in voluntarily.” She passes the applicator the prisoner’s shackled hands. “I’ll be supervising in case you decide to get unwise,” she threatens.

“I got the message, thank you,” Hux bites. The door hisses open and Hux is overcome by the violent sounds of Ren’s hacking. He sounds like he’s dying.

Ren’s heated, feverish glower immediately falls to awe when he sees Hux, ushered in by the scavenger.

In all Hux’s years in charge of the Finalizer and even the few before that, he had never seen Ren in such a pathetic, disheveled state. Black hair tacky with filth, skin rippling with sweat, brown eyes bugging like they’re trying to escape his skull.

Briefly, Hux investigates the surroundings. A pitcher of fresh water, a cup with a straw atop a nearby table, shelves bolted to walls cleared of whatever medical sharps they once housed. He’s unable to find a weapon to neutralize the girl. Maybe the medicine applicator in his palms. He could spray it in her eyes.

Not like he’d get very far, anyway, by the look of Ren’s intricate assembly of magnetic shackles and the bulky Force inhibitor collar constricting his neck. Hux wishes he’d never stowed the device away, its use now functioning against them.

“Sit back,” Hux instructs, pacing close. But Ren doesn’t comply. He looks as if he might cry, face contorting into agony. Hux has never seen Ren cry before.

Ren is unable to form any words, fumbling over the syllables. How can this be? Hux is dead. Has he truly broken? The torrent of his mind gives him nothing to work with, no logic to spare, irrational panic consuming him.

“Ren,” Hux barks, growing impatient. He pulls up a nearby chair, taking advantage of the luxury. Somewhere behind him the scavenger girl hovers.

Black hair swimming on the soaked pillow beneath, Ren cranes his neck to Hux. Picking up every detail of his face. Impatient green eyes, cheekbones high above a thick pad of beard, errant strands of titian crosshatching his forehead.

“You have to close your mouth around this,” Hux waves the applicator in front of Ren’s uncomprehending eyes. “When I tell you, you have to breathe in through your mouth.”

Ren wheezes in delirium, trying to crane his head closer to the voice.

“Do you understand?” Hux demands.

The lids of his eyes tremble, eyelashes gummy with unshed tears. Hux isn’t sure the aimless rolling of his eyeballs is an affirmative.

“Ren.” No change. “Ren. Look at me.”

Eyeballs roll, blind to his surroundings.

Hux changes his tactic, heart skipping a beat when he brings his hand to palm Ren’s jaw and cheek. The length of the chain permits the intimate touch without hindering the administering of the medicine.

“Ren,” his voice lowers, looking into Ren’s reeling eyes. “Look at me. Keep your eyes on me. Can you hear me? Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Ren’s throat vibrates with a hum, a low noise he can feel from the contact of his little finger.

“Do you see this?” he asks, holding the applicator to his eye level.

Ren’s brow puckers, blinking rapidly at the device.

“You’ve got to hold your lips against it and when I tell you to, inhale the medicine,” he instructs with every ounce of patience he can muster.

Glaring at the applicator, Ren blinks. Focusing.

“Are you ready?”

Ren finds Hux’s eyes with his own. He nods to the twin pools of green, only now registering where the warmth on his cheek is coming from. It’s Hux’s hand, warm and alive.

The applicator finds Ren’s lips guided by Hux’s anchor on his jaw. His thumb hovers on the trigger. “I’m going to count down from three. Then you must breathe in the spray.”

Receiving a nod, Hux begins. “Three. Two. One.”

Ren inhales the medicine, its healing effects like a crisp breath of fresh air. He leans forward into the source of the coolness soothing the chronic burn in his lungs, to the warm beacon on his cheek and jaw.

They repeat the process until the rattling in Ren’s chest dilutes. Hux withdraws his hands.

Ren exhales through his nostrils, healing nose fracture protesting with the force of it. Though he doesn’t remember when or why he’d gotten injured there. He takes the straw that’s offered, gulping down as much of the water as he can.

“Feel better?” Hux asks, grimacing at Ren’s smell. He’s in need of a long, hot shower.

“What's happening?” whispers Ren, hoarse with exhaustion. “You. You’re alive. How are you alive?” Ren bores into Hux’s puzzled sneer. “I killed you. It was my fault,” he confesses, tears clouding his vision.

Sickened at Ren’s disorientation, Hux manages to remain stern. “You're malfunctioning,” Hux tells him, flowing with relief to hear Ren’s voice again. He doesn’t hamper the freeing emotion, for the collar prohibits Ren from using his projection against him like he’s done many times in the past. “I escaped death, no thanks to you.” Several times, actually.

Ren has no idea what to make of any of this. “You’re here. You’re alive and that’s all that matters,” he mutters. Hux is alright. If Hux is alive then that means—“Where's the boy?” he begs.

An unexpected question. “With them,” Hux says, ducking his head at his admission. General Organa must have told him about Marin.

Maybe this is the Force granting him a second chance. Somehow, Hux is here, whole and alive, though looking more haggard than he remembers. Their son is around, he's sure. He can confront him about the lightsaber. Hux being here, warm and compassionate, proves this is the Force’s doing. That Ren was in the wrong for accusing the boy and letting his fear get the best of him.

He can tell him it won’t happen again. He can tell him he's sorry.

“Thank you for helping me. Like you always do. You talk me down when I need it,” Ren smiles weakly, an honest, open expression.

Hux’s heart stutters. Where did that come from?

“How did we get here?” Ren asks.

That, Hux can answer. “We were captured by the Resistance. Almost four days now.”

Captured? They must have found them. Ren narrows his eyes. “How'd you grow that beard?”

Typical Ren, dazed and confused. “What's the last thing you remember?”

About a whole day of fighting his lungs, and ignoring the bombardment of conversation from Organa. Before that, the lightsaber appearing on the lakeshore, the boy's alleged deception. Hux’s silent scream, his heart stopping, the boy's terror. And unrelenting, all-encompassing rage.

The regret sits cold and hard like a stone in his heart. But he’s been given another chance. He will learn to control his emotions, his fears.

“We were together,” Ren murmurs.

“What?” Hux exasperates.

“He found the vegetables himself,” Ren says, head lolling towards him.

That cleared up nothing. “What are you talking about?”

“We were home. I came up behind you and held you, and you told me he found the food all by himself. And you let me touch your scar. The one low on your abdomen.”

Hux’s scowl does little to hide the vulnerability peeking through his eyes. “Ren, you aren't making any sense.”

Ren swallows around his parched throat, pleading in silence for some more water. Hux guides the straw to Ren’s lips.

“Organa told me the boy is outside. Is he alright? Is he angry with me again?” he croaks, open and sincere.

Not even Ren is deserving of such a pathetic mental state. “I doubt it, seeing that you have never met him,” Hux tells him.

Deep in thought, Ren goes over the events of the last few days in his mind. “We were together,” he slurs, assuring, “All three of us. We were home. Remember?” Hux must have his wires crossed from whatever the Force had done to bring him back to life.

Hux bristles, nerves cracking. Ren must have been trapped in a wild hallucination. “You need to stop fighting the medics so they can get a look at your brain before it melts out of your ears.”

Battling his confusion, his hurt, Ren blinks above at the stinging artificial light of the ceiling. “How long have I been unconscious? How long since we were together?”

There he goes again, with that ‘together’ nonsense. “You've been out for three or four days. And before your brain ruptured, the Finalizer was overtaken by Phasma. Don't you remember that?”

“But, our son—” Ren cuts himself off. He recalls that—but their desertion of the Order with their son couldn't have been long after. He scrutinizes the details but the gaps in his memory only begs more questions. “Organa said he's on this ship. Just on the other side of the door. Explain that,” Ren grates, tenacity wavering.

Resentment solidifying inside him, Hux leans forward to Ren’s space. “What's his name?”

“What?”

“If we really were ever together—just the three of us—tell me his name.”

Ren draws in on himself, split wrists tearing in the magcuffs.

He has no idea what the boy’s name is. Absolutely no idea. He glowers to Hux as the realization befalls him, charring his reality.

“He may be on the other side of that door and we may all be on the same _ship_ , but that doesn't mean we're together,” Hux growls, slamming the half depleted cup on the stand by the bed.

It's then that Ren sees the cuffs connecting Hux’s thin wrists, and then focuses on the scavenger girl lurking in the corner of the room. Reminding him of the Force inhibitor collar and the manacles locking each hand and ankle.

“We're done here,” Hux tells Rey.

Rey looks to Ren, his eyes closed, wrought in thoughtful misery. Defeated, broken. She's not sure she preferred hearing his violent wheezing to this brooding, this strike into silent torment from the prisoner.

The prisoner hides behind a taut blankness to his features—not sparing her a glance or even a taunt as she removes the cuffs and activates the closing mechanism to the interrogation room.

Yet the rolls of contempt, heartbreak, regret trundle from within. Her walk back to the residentiary wing does nothing to shake the prisoner’s unkempt projection.

 


	14. Chapter 14

“Tell me more about the Academy,” Marin says to his father through their connection. Marin’s across the ship in the residential wing, nestled in a cot with a large thermal blanket. Finn’s asleep in the cot on the other side of the room, one of his booted feet dangling over the edge.

Marin focuses himself back inside Hux’s new cell. Still on the detention level, but there is a toilet that he doesn’t have to be escorted to. No stall for privacy on the toilet, no mirror, but there’s a sink and a block of soap in which Hux can wash himself. The only disruption to the cube-like cement walled cell is a small doorway burning with an energy field, completely inescapable through mortal means.

Hux lies on the floor, the cell's only surface. “It was a rewarding experience,” he says.

“Was that where you learned discipline?” Marin isn't sure he's disciplined enough for Hux’s standards. Hux is a very calm, collected person. On the outside, anyway. But that’s what discipline is about, being proper on the outside regardless of your feelings.

“I was always disciplined.” Hux rolls on his side, facing the squatting boy. Marin is cradling his chin in his hands, and the ripples of his scars emboldening with the pressure.

“Because of your family?” Marin really wants to know more about Hux’s family but anytime he asks, Hux only replies with something vague and saddening.

“There's nothing to be said on that subject.”

Marin lies on his stomach, his mentally-projected self mimicking the position his actual body is in. He's getting pretty good at communicating with Hux in this way. No one's seemed to notice, not even Rey and all her power. He'd like to think that his connection with Hux is so special that not even the trained Jedi can pick up on it. Not even Luke Skywalker, Kylo Ren’s master when he was trained in the ways of the Jedi.

“What would you have done if I wasn't sent away? Would you have kept me on the Finalizer?” From Hux’s description of his battle cruiser, he can only imagine what it would be like to grow up in an enormous metal ship. He doesn't mind the environment of the cruiser they're in now but he does miss the feeling of wind in his hair and sunshine on his cheeks.

Hux quirks his lip, exhausted beyond the point of caring to mind his emotions. His imagination supplies him with Marin bouncing excitedly from between the rows of Stormtroopers. But if Marin had grown up under the structure of the First Order, it’s unlikely he would ever develop the inclination to play in such a professional environment.

Another glaring possibility, another what-could-have-been, is that Hux could have abandoned the Order to be with his son. Left Ren and his unpredictability, left his father’s dream and his own aspirations, committed the treasonous act of desertion to be with Marin. Would his Starkiller ever have been constructed if he left the Order then? Would the lives Starkiller consumed be enlightening the universe had he made such a choice all those years ago?

It seems to matter very little now that their what-could-have-been appears to have fallen into place. He’s banished from the Order, cast away into hiding from Snoke and his pawns. And he’s got Marin at his side—in a manner of speaking.

And additionally Ren and his continuous unpredictability.

Fate answers the question of what-could-have-been for him, tempting him along this inevitable path.

“I don't know,” he answers, truthful. He doesn’t know what he would have done then, given another chance, and damn sure has no idea what he wants now.

Marin closes his eyes, cheek sticking to the coolness of the cement floor. “I think...I think when they let me talk to Kylo Ren, I'm gonna try my hardest to convince him to stay.”

“You don't know if his path lies with yours. Or with theirs,” he hears himself say. “He's been awake for what, two days? Why not try and talk to him as you're talking to me?” It’s not that he wants Marin to stop communicating with him, but he would like it if Ren was the one to spearhead their escape. As capable as Hux is, he’s no match for the trained Force-users that crawl these halls.

Marin pillows his head with his arm, copying Hux’s recline. “He's upset. I don't want to make it worse.”

“He'll get over it,” Hux grumbles. “He's already half senile now.”

“Wh’ do you mean?” slurs the boy, mind withered with exhaustion.

He curses himself. He'd admitted too much. Hux could turn the question around and chase Marin away with subtle verbal abuse. Instead, he tells him, “He got lost in his own head.” With any hope, Marin won't be as foolish.

“Is he going to be okay?” the boy asks gravely.

If Marin is going to make it very far in this galaxy, he shouldn’t succumb to sentiment. If only Hux could take his own advice. “I'm sure he'll bounce back.”

Hux’s stomach flips at Marin’s little smile. Against his will Hux is reminded of Ren and the few times his smiles were fixed in his direction.

“What about you? What's going to happen to you?” Marin blinks his eyes slowly, nuzzling the crook of his elbow. He's uncertain about both his fathers’ fates and the thought makes his stomach flutter uncomfortably.

Hux considers his response, opting for honesty as he's prone to do with Marin. “If I can't escape I'm certain my fate would be decided for me by the hands of the Resistance.”

Marin saw what happened with the gang of angry men, how they had hurt his father and cut him open with every intention of letting his heart stop. “Do you think they'll kill you?” There's been enough talk about killing.

“Given the chance. And they'll have plenty of those.” If they ever devise a way to remove his deathswitch and save the life of Organa’s hopeless son.

“Not if it's up to me,” Marin pledges, his earnestness peeking through his yawn.

The meaning behind the boy’s promise doesn't sink into Hux’s mind until several minutes later. He rolls his head to look at Marin in his eyes but the boy is fast asleep, his cheek squished against his arm.

He can't look away, memorizing all the details of the new picture he'll keep deep in the safety of his mind with the rest of the Marins.

The boy's visage doesn't blip away as it does when he's in fear of being discovered, like when General Organa comes around to get information.

Hux closes his eyes. Even in slumber, the father and son bear the mental connection.

  
  
\--

 

“Rey told me what Ben said to you.”

The general interrupts Hux’s scrubbing around his neck. Without a sponge Hux is forced to use his bare hand. Though the circulated air pumping from a thin vent on the wall is mute enough that he avoids the chill, and he’s grateful the cell is without much draft besides that so he can take his time drying himself.

“He’s delusional. Might be a lost cause,” he tells her flatly. “How long is it going to take before I’m transported to a proper prison?” He’s sick of playing the waiting game. He’s waited for years for the Republic, Snoke, or a bounty hunter to come for him. For Ren to contact him by some miracle he’d ever could. Or wanted to, for that matter.

He’s also found that he has yet to make the plea for Marin to help him escape. Because he knows that this is the place where he can be close enough to interact with Marin without facing the debt he owes him. Hux admits this only to the private, fragile part of himself that he’s tirelessly struggled to malleate into resolution.

The general’s arms are crossed from the other side of the energy field, giving her form a red haze. “As of now you’re the only person who’s gotten him to say a word,” she says. Luke had attempted the day prior, but was met with more resistance then when she had interrogated him.

It’s been two days since Ren confessed his delusions to him. They’d stuck with him more than he wish they did, Ren’s broken mind trying to pathetically convince him that the three of them—Ren, Hux, and Marin—could ever have been a unit.

Not when Ren was the one who delivered Marin as a newborn to Snoke, where he grew to be a clever, hopeful, naive boy. Wise beyond his years despite solitude and lack of basic resources.

Ren was the one who told him their child was meant for great things. There’s nothing great about getting babysat by a horde of Resistance criminals, having them gain his trust while he’s eager to learn their erroneous ways. Ren was the one who took him away from the Order, away from Hux. He knows this now, and won’t ever forget, let alone forgive him.

 _You let him go,_ the malleable part of himself scolds in his long-since dead father’s voice. _You let Ren take him, coward._

“And you want me to interrogate him for you?” Hux scoffs, stifling the flagellation.

“We can't keep you here for much longer. You better get your head out of your ass and start thinking ahead.”

Hux forces his face not to twist at the general’s crassness. Just about the only thing the Resistance and the First Order have in common is that they don't make deals with the enemy. She has no intention of ever letting him go.

But if there's anything Hux knows how to do, it's to survive.

“You said you could get him to talk. So do it,” the general says. The wall of energy dissolves and General Organa steps back.

Hux breaks the barrier of the doorway. “No cuffs this time?”

The traitor, FN-2187 is on the other side behind her holding a bucket.

“You'll need your hands for this.” Finn doesn't bother containing his smugness passing it to Hux.

Frowning down at the bucket’s contents—a rag, a bar of soap—Hux glares at the traitor. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

“He stinks,” Finn informs, way too satisfied to boss Hux around. “Come on.”

There's no way Hux could have predicted that the Resistance dogs would propose that he give Ren a bath with nothing more than a bucket and a rag. “You're kidding.”

“We tried four different medics and he fought off each one. Think of this as your golden opportunity,” Finn advises.

“Opportunity for what?” Hux hisses, incredulous, on their way to the medbay.

Finn flicks his eyes to General Organa. “To…do the right thing for once,” is what he comes up with by the time they reach their destination.

What does that even mean? “I take it you’ll be my audience?”

“I’m better at the bird’s eye view,” Finn nods to the series of camera outputs on a screen that wasn’t there before. Ren’s right where he left him, hooked up to nutrients and bolted to the bed like some kind of monster. It’s been years since Hux saw Ren as a monster. “Sink’s on the right.” Finn ushers him in, closing the door behind him.

Just awful. He wishes the scavenger girl were here, or the general. Hells, even the traitor. Hux turns around, grimacing to Ren, who looks surprised to see him.

“So you’re with them now?” Ren accuses, his voice rough like woodchips.

Hux laughs, the idea of being ‘with’ anyone as insulting as it is unlikely. “Just doing their dirty work.”

Ren’s eyes fall to the bucket. “Great,” he deflates, slumping to the bed.

“I’d hate for you to have to endure this without your consent,” Hux sneers as the bucket froths with fresh water from the faucet.

Ren picks up on every drip of contempt from the comment, mind springing like elastic back to the past, when Hux was the one strapped to a slab. “Oh, I’m sure,” he bites.

He’s had a countless lonesome hours trapped in this bed, trapped in his mind, unable to reach out. Infinite minutes to accept that he’d fallen victim to the Force’s misleading, entrapping visions. His days sitting with his son on the lakeshore were nothing more than fantasy, as was Hux’s care for him—his _love_ for him—and his own reciprocation.

Ren also weighed the possibility these dreams were hints of his future, but the future where he singlehandedly destroys everything he’d ever siphoned an ounce of care for is no future he ever wants to live in.

Hux hauls the bucket over to Ren’s bedside. “Have they been making you shit the bed?” he asks casually.

“Haven’t felt the need to.” It’s the nutrient supplement, giving his body exactly what he needs to sustain life.

Soaping up the rag, Hux wrinkles his nose. Ren really does stink. “Try not to fidget.”

Ren twitches his blood crusted wrists. There’s no place to go.

Hux begins at the problem areas, which most visually are indicated by his grease-matted hair. Hopefully the soap bar will do the trick. He doesn’t want to have to go begging for more toiletries. Unkindly, Hux flops the soapy rag over Ren’s eyes to attack his hairline and the oily skin connected to it. Ren’s eyes clench in protest but he says nothing. At least the water’s warm, Hux’s way of being generous.

The rag slips to the back of Ren’s head and he unclenches his eyes but leaves them shut, relaxed from the sensation. His mind bombards him with memories of Hux’s fingers through his hair, warm like spring water. Of nights that began with the sunrise and ended with the sunset.

Not the dream nights, the falsehoods and fantasies. But the real nights they spent together in exile years and years ago while Hux carried their son.

Hux goes so far as to scrub at Ren’s face, logic telling him to do this first before the rag gets filthier. Around Ren’s nose and cheekbones, his early-onset frown lines, the short beginnings of a beard, the cut of his jaw, across his scar and again in that order. Dabbing his injured nose with uncharacteristic gentleness.

“I think y’missed a spot,” grumbles Ren, dispassionate.

Hux ignores him, scrubbing along the curve of his neck below the collar, across the gnarled scar striping his shoulder and neck. He can feel pleading eyes on him.

“You gonna do it?” It’s clear he means the collar. With the collar off, Ren would be able to attack the cuffs with his connection with the Force—a plan with a high risk on multiple fronts.

“They’re watching,” Hux warns.

_“So?”_

Hux continues his scrubbing, forcing his way down Ren’s back as far as he can go. “Forget it.”

Ren sinks backward, effectively stilling Hux’s arm. “Why the fuck won’t you do it?”

The collar needs a needle to reset it. Two needles or prongs. If Hux attempts to free Ren with whatever he can get his hands on, there’s no telling what that would mean for Marin. The unpredictability is too great. They need more time. Hux and Marin need more time. “They’re _watching,_ Ren,” is what he tells him. “Get up. You weigh a thousand pounds.” When Ren gives in, Hux sloshes his rag in the bucket.

“You’re a coward. I should’ve remembered,” he spits, though spoken as if Ren’s attempting to assure himself.

“Remembered? Your brains must really have been scrambled.” Hux brings the cloth to Ren’s chest under the collar of the gown, laving it over his pectorals as clinically as he’s able.

Ren shivers, powerless to stop his body’s reaction. In another world, Hux wouldn’t have said those words with that much spite. The realization enrages him, anger focused inward at his own betraying feelings. “You have no idea,” he laments.

His somberness makes Hux falter on his ribcage. “I might be able to relate more than you think.” He wasn’t aiming for comfort, just honesty.

Ren watches him re-soap the rag to tackle his underarms. “Where are they keeping you?”

“In a cell. Been having many interesting conversations with your mother,” he tells him.

Peculiar how Ren doesn’t have as much adversity in acknowledging that particular relationship when it’s coming from Hux. “About what?”

“What else? You. Just about the only thing we have in common.”

“I doubt that,” Ren hears himself say with no further explanation.

Hux doesn’t know how to respond to that. He snorts softly and Ren lolls his head towards the pleasant, jarring noise.

“Do you talk about him?” Ren says, voice wrought with meaning.

Hand caught in the crevice of Ren’s armpit, Hux stills. “Only once.”

Ren’s throat bobs underneath the confines of the collar. “Did you talk to him?”

They’re approaching dangerous, raw territory. “Once,” Hux lies.

Hux’s caught under his penetrating gaze, Ren’s unfeeling senses scrambling to get a reading. “What’s his name?” he implores. A beg, a plea for absolution. Maybe Hux was wrong, and forgiveness isn’t as impossible as it always appeared to be.

He pulls away from Ren’s damp body, letting the rag soak in the bucket, the request hanging precarious in the air between them. “Marin.”

“Oh.” Ren’s brow pinches together.

Hux resumes his scrubbing, around each of his biceps and forearms. The bucket is getting cloudy but he doesn’t plan on refilling it until he tackles the caked blood on Ren’s wrists and hands.

“How is he here? With them?” Ren presses. The rag works at the blood, dipping back into the bucket.

“They found him and took him in. He plans on staying and training to be a Jedi,” he spits, hoping the words will sting.

Instead, Ren sags deeper into the bed. “Well,” Ren lolls his head, his primary method of expressing himself within the confines of this bed, “we’ll have to do something about that,” he says without fervor, as if they’re discussing their disapproval for who their child chooses to spend his free time with after school.

The blood takes more effort to scrub away than he’d anticipated. “One thing at a time,” Hux chastises.

Ren closes his eyes, seeing the scorch of blue plasma and the glint of the chrome bayonet, the manifestation of his inmost terrors. “I lied,” he confesses. “When I caught you on the Finalizer, I told you I knew where to find him. I was lying.”

Hux nods. He accepted long ago Ren’s reasons for taking Marin away and resented him for it into the final years of their partnership.  

Two long fingers bend to bracket Hux’s thin wrist and Hux pulls back instinctively. That’s not what this is. He’s here to finish the bath and go back to his cell. He glares to Ren to make his point.

“I didn’t have a choice in taking him,” Ren tells him. “He was meant for Snoke. Not us.”

Hux works at the other palm and Ren thankfully spares him his sleazy moves. Ren’s always been Snoke’s loyal minion. Nothing’s changed. “You’d be a shit parent, anyway,” Hux looks up at him, the corner of his mouth turning up.

Straightening his neck, Ren regards him with overdone seriousness. “Hux,” he begins, “there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.”

Here he goes. “What?”

“I really hate that beard,” Ren deadpans.

Typical Ren. Bolted to a bed, Force-blind, exhausted, getting hand-washed by the man he's attempting to get a rise out of. Hux refuses to give Ren a reaction.

“It makes you look like an old man,” Ren adds, playful.

The Resistance pair on the other side of the door is probably wondering if Ren’s truly gone mad, but Hux knows this is how Ren behaves when the pressure is off. Facetious, childlike, expressive. Hux had gotten used to his teasing long ago. No one sees this side of Ren but him.

He didn’t realize until this precise moment how terribly he missed hearing the smile in Ren’s voice.

Ren’s smirking at his own comment, watching him carefully as he finishes tending to the caked blood. Hux moves to the sink to refill his bucket.

Re-soaping the rag, Hux gears up for the new challenge, Ren’s lower half. He turns up the flap to Ren’s medical gown to reveal his stomach, hips, and thighs. Hux flares his nostrils, grateful Ren’s got underwear on. A tight piece of black fabric that constricts his genitals and the bones of his hips, extending to the topmost sections of his lithic thighs.

Ren parts his knees imperceptibly, almost unnoticeable. Almost. Hux resists an eye-roll.

He gets back to work, dragging the rag over his abdomen and around his back. Ren arches his spine to give Hux more room under there. That's the primary reason, at least. The water's not nearly as warm as it was before the refill but the motions of the rag are soothing regardless of the water’s coolness.

Hux flicks his eyes to Ren’s face, his dark halo of hair curling against his forehead and cheekbones as it dries from the bath.

Pointedly, he skips down to the lower halves of Ren’s thighs. Ren’s calves are hairier than the rest of his legs and the rag tugs the dark fuzz with each motion.

“You missed a spot,” Ren grumbles, wiggling his hips.

Hux glares up at him. He can't possibly be serious.

“It's pretty ripe down there.” Ren’s smirking again like he'd won a challenge.

Hux remembers the view from the video feed in which the Resistance is using to monitor them. He spots one camera, mounted in the corner of the room and another right on the other side, both pointing down accusingly.

Face taut with blankness, Hux plops the rag into the bucket. He hooks his fingers on either side of the underwear clinging to Ren’s hips, impatiently yanking them down to his knees.

The chill of the medbay room against his exposed skin startles his muted senses. Ren should have known better than to taunt him.

Ren doesn't quite believe what Hux is preparing to do before it's too late. The cool douse of bathwater that assaults his flaccid cock rips an undignified squawk from his throat.

Yeah, he really should have known better.

Hux sets the half-emptied bucket down to re-soap the rag. He lets Ren’s dick experience the draft some more, finishing up his calves and ankles.

He doesn't bother concealing his pout from Hux, who finishes around the blood congealing on his ankles from the magcuffs and even to the bases of his feet.

He waits until Hux pulls his underwear back up to speak again. “How'd you get us captured, anyway?”

“We got caught when you collapsed. I went planetside to find someone to help you and it all disintegrated,” Hux informs him, tucking Ren back into his gown.

“You could have left me. But you didn't.”

Hux blinks down to the floor. “You're the only one powerful enough to defeat Snoke.”

“Did you miss me while you were away? In exile?”

There he goes again, trying to reel Hux in with charm. Hux looks back up at the cameras—ridiculously so, because he just poured dirty bathwater over Ren’s exposed genitals for all of the Resistance to see. It’s laughable he’s treating this line of questioning like something more intimate and obscene than that. “Don't ask questions that you know the answer to.”

“Yeah. That's what you say when you don't want to admit your feelings. You're like a child,” Ren drawls without any heat.

“I wasn’t away. You and Snoke ridded me into hiding.” He finished the bath but the Resistance has yet to escort him out. They’re no doubt listening in on their argument with eager ears, waiting for Hux to turn it around and get information out of him.

Ren adjusts his bottom, restraining a grimace at the dampness down there. “I defied a direct order when I cast you out. I spared you. Never even got a thank you.”

Hux can’t believe his arrogance. “Thank you, Ren, for _sparing me_. Thank you for allowing me to see all the wonderful underworlds of this galaxy in my years of hiding. And thank you for getting us captured by the Resistance where I’ve already met so many members of your family.”

The general told him to get information out of him, Snoke’s whereabouts—the same information Hux needs to regain his rank in the First Order. But he can no longer bear to look at Ren, eyes glassy with whatever emotion he’s trying to manipulate him with next.

“Don’t mention it.”

Unbelievable. Hux pushes off the stool, stomping towards to door.

“Wait,” Ren yells after him.

He always seems to end up here—between Ren and his better judgement. He turns around but doesn’t move any closer.

Ren twitches his nostrils in the way he does when swallowing his pride. “What happens now?”

“Seeing that you’re not very clever, our best option would be to cooperate.”

“Cooperate? With _them?”_ Ren scorns, rage renewed.

Hux sits back down where he’s sat to wash Ren’s face. “They want to know where Snoke is hiding. We were arguing about the same thing, right before you had a stroke. Remember?” he asks, keeping his wording as ambiguous as possible.

Ren remembers his vision clearer than that, of Hux massaging his back and telling him to get some rest. But yes, he remembers the plan. Hux’s plan: get the Resistance to take down Snoke with Ren at their side and when their guard is down and they believe he’s turned back into their ally, Ren can eradicate the new legion of Jedi.

He nods to Hux, reluctant, backed into a corner. “It would appear to be the only option. There is one problem,” Ren tells him.

“What problem?”

“I don’t know where he is,” Ren confesses to Hux’s scrutiny. “I remember the place, the environment. But the name of the planet, its coordinates. Completely lost to me. Snoke takes the information away right out of my head.”

“How is that possible?”

“Through our connection. Always had it.”

Hux wonders if Marin is still connected with Snoke. His skin crawls at the thought of it. “How do you find him?”

“I reach out and he answers. Sometimes he tells me when he summons me, but that’s rare. I need this damned collar off or I’ll never be able to tell you where he is.”

The hiss of the opening door interrupts them.

“Clearly they don’t believe you,” Hux informs him.

Ren glares to the intruders. His gut tingles with anxiety where rage is more accustomed to brew.

General Organa motions for Finn to take Hux. “We appreciate your compliance,” she tells him on his way out. Hux cranes his head to Ren, desperate to not break eye contact until the door does it for him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a bit of a light hearted chapter, the Kylux Spongebath Scene as i so fondly call it in my head hahah.....thanks so much for reading and for your feedback :)


	15. Chapter 15

 

 

The door to the medbay chamber hisses close. Leaving Ren alone at the hands of his old master, Luke Skywalker. Ren refuses to speak to any of these Resistance vermin in his weakened, handicapped state.

As anticipated, Skywalker speaks first. “It truly pains me to do this, Ben,” he grates. “If you tell us where Snoke is now, I won’t have to.”

Ren glares at him, tongue itching to retort.

“You say you need connection with the Force to communicate with Snoke to get his location. This is true? You’re certain?” Skywalker asks, as if he expects honesty.

Unfortunately it’s true, Ren wants to say, that he doesn’t even have information to hold against them. His stubbornness wins out. He cocks his head to the side, saying nothing.

Skywalker draws out his hand, reaching towards Ren’s vulnerable, Force-blind mind. Ren hisses against the feeling of his first master from within his head—not in pain, but in the undeniable familiarity of the act. Where Ren would pillage the deepest, most intimate fissures in his victim’s mind, Skywalker handles his with care, like one would turn over a fragile, breakable crystal.

Enraged at the peaceful invasion, Ren is unable to hold back his words. _You hate me. You have every reason to hate me. But that hate deserves to go to_ Organa _. She sent me to you_ , Ren hisses blindly through his mind.

 _You did this to yourself. You have committed atrocities with no one to blame but yourself—as I have done to myself as well. Own up to it so you can begin to heal_ , Skywalker demands, skimming Ren’s words within and maneuvering each fold like slips of paper.

Luke turns a page, wincing at the context in which his words are written. It's clear to him how Snoke’s influence had cast his mind into the deepest recesses, using his own fears, hopes, loves to torment him into complacency. If it hadn't have been for the Force inhibitor collar severing Snoke’s connection, he may have passed the point of no return, lost forever to his own darkness.

Growling against the suggestion, Ren reopens the wounds to his wrists. The blood drips to the stained bed spread. In his mind Luke sees the involuntary memory surface, of the prisoner—Hux—washing the blood from his arms around a bonfire, the stars minimizing the darkness that swallows the nighttime. He sees how Ren was kissed there, feels his confusion, his hope in the dream that altered his perception of his waking reality.

Luke turns the next page, seeing Marin wave a vibrant blue lightsaber. Ren throwing the saber into the lake, the boy's heartbreak, Hux’s heartache. Ren’s guilt eating him alive.

He sees Ren swimming for hours to find the lightsaber, his efforts futile until Marin forgives him and helps in the search. How their chore evolves to games, Ren smiling free and childlike. Back in the safety of the cave he feels Ren’s heart swelling with comfort and contentment, Hux slight in his arms.

He feels Ren's horror when he has the lightsaber in his hands again, _scalded_ by the vision of Han’s last moments, Ren’s own mirrored fate at the hands of his own son.

The agony in every one of his heart’s final beats when Ren watches the light leave Hux’s eyes. Ren’s heart stilling. Dead, now a shell, a revenant of his former self.

Ren suspects the dream to be a vision of the future. It is a future. An end to a selfish path. But nothing is set in stone. The Force grants solace to those who entrust the light, not greedily succumb to the darkness.

Luke passes the advice onto Ren, who's powerless to help the hot tears from falling.

It’s clear Ren has no idea where to locate Snoke. Not even his most scarred pages hold the coordinates, or his most treasured, untouched ones.

Luke’s heart sinks in sympathy. Ren is like him in this way, a man who has lost everything and only has himself to blame. But there's still a sliver of hope for Ren. The same cannot be said for Luke, because after years of his reunion with his daughter, there is very little indication they can pick up from where they left off. She’s never wanted to, and he cannot blame her.

But if there's any hope for his once-apprentice, it would be enough.

“There's still time for you to atone. Don't waste it.” He pulls away, leaving Ren by himself, his most hated way to spend his time.

“Leia,” he greets his sister on the other side of the closed door. “He was telling the truth. There's no way he can lead us to Snoke. Not like this.” Luke pauses, allowing the general to absorb his findings. “Do you want another crack at him?”

General Organa blinks away tears. “He doesn't want to speak to me.” She's not too keen on speaking to him either. They both know removing the collar is not an option, not anytime soon.

“You were right,” Luke takes her hand in his flesh one. “There's still good in him. Not in the way you think, but it's there.” Kylo Ren’s capable of loyalty, compassion, empathy, even if it has been forged for the genocidal, imperialistic, ex-cult leader. Love works more mysteriously than the Force.

Luke passes on waves of assurance. “He's remorseful,” he continues. “For what happened.” It's clear he means Han. “He might not know it. Or understand it. But it's there.”

Her lip quivers, squeezing his hand between the both of hers.

 

\--

 

“They really had you do that?” gasps Marin’s manifestation in Hux’s mind.

Hux has just humored the boy and told him about Ren’s bath, including all the humiliating details on Ren’s behalf. “Yes. It was like washing a gigantic baby.”

“Oh, no,” Marin chuckles. “I bet he was grateful you took care of him. Is he going to be strapped to the bed for much longer?”

“I don't know. If they let him go, he'll probably try and rip everyone's heads off.”

Marin frowns. “Would he really do that?”

“He hates them. I don't doubt it,” he tells the boy, truthful.

“But...what about me? I know he killed Han Solo but would he ever try to hurt me? He doesn't even know me.” Marin wants to ask Kylo Ren about Han Solo more than he wants to ask any of his other copious questions. But that line of questioning will probably have to wait until he and Kylo Ren are on sure footing.

Hux regards the boy, narrowing his eyes. “Your life isn't one he plans on taking.”

“What about yours?”

He thinks of the deathswitch, and their fates sealed like cement. How that no such technology had been implanted when Ren spared his life after Starkiller’s failure. “He’s spared me once before. If he wanted me dead he would have done it by now.”

“Because you're friends again?”

So naive. “He's learned to have faith in my methods.”

Marin blinks. “So you're _not_ friends?”

“It's complicated.”

He can accept that. “Are his brains still scrambled?”

Hux knows Marin is getting antsy, all this talk about Kylo Ren, the visions of joviality and play too enticing. “He’s better. He’s not averse to some company, but I’m sure the Resistance would disapprove.”

“But Grandmother said I can meet him when he’s healed in the head.” He doesn’t want to go behind their backs, not like he is now communicating in Hux’s mind this way. He knows there’d never be a chance to see Hux, not anytime soon, given what Rey and Finn have told him about Hux.

Maybe it’s the same situation with Kylo Ren. But even the thought of contact, after everything he’s learned about Han Solo and how Kylo Ren hates his family, he’s afraid what will happen when he finally meets him. He voices his concerns with Hux.

Something naked and soulful flutters through Hux’s features. “He knows you’re here. And from what he tells me, the Force,” the word foreign on his tongue, “had shown him visons of you.” Of the three of them, together, but Hux still has no idea what that means. He amounts it up to Ren’s delusion.

“Really?” Marin gasps, scooting on his bottom. He emotes a little too tremendously, guard falling down and revealing his innermost childhood desires—

It’s Rey that scolds him out of Hux’s mind. “Marin, what are you doing?” she demands, stern and level.

Did Rey hear any of his conversation? Has she finally figured out he’s deceiving them all? Marin’s eyes prickle with tears, not yet ready to face his well-deserved punishment. “Nothing,” he tells her meekly.

She had left Marin reserving a table in the dining hall and has approached him with their twin trays of food. They both take smaller portions than Finn and Poe Dameron, who both join them at his table with their large trays. Now, all these eyes are on him, scrutinizing and questioning. He just wants to crawl back inside the safety of Hux’s mind.

“Where were you?” she asks him, patient.

Marin frowns to Poe and Finn, unable to look Rey in her concerned eyes. “I was right here,” he lies. Well, technically he was.

“Your mind was somewhere else. I felt you reaching out. Where were you?”

Poe and Finn can only gape and wait for Marin’s answer.

Under the pressure Marin cracks, smashing his hand against the table.

“We’re not angry,” Rey says. “We have your best interests at heart.”

He knows that Rey means it. But they wouldn’t ever forgive him for lying, so he reveals nothing. He swipes at a tear beading on his cheek. Stewing in his stubbornness, Marin takes a bite of his food from between his scarred fingers.

Rey surrenders. With all these rules and restrictions it was only a matter of time before a young, clever boy like Marin figured out how to bend them. She knows so because she would do the exact thing, fighting against good sense to follow her heart.

Rey looks to Finn. “Do you trust me?”

How is that a question? Finn nods.

“Enough secrets. After we eat, I'll take you to meet Kylo Ren.” She never skips the opportunity for a meal and Marin’s no different.

Finn’s unable to help the near-spit take. Poe grimaces in remorse, patting his hand on Finn’s back to ease his coughing.

Brows pinching, Rey looks to Finn again. “Finn…”

“I know, I know. I trust you,” he says when the coughing stops.

Once they finish, Marin looks to Rey wearily. She passes him a wave of encouragement. Hand in hand, they spare Finn and Poe one last glance. They head to the medbay.

“I was talking to Hux,” Marin blurts, incapable of holding back the truth from Rey. “I'm sorry for lying. No one was really talking to me. It felt good to talk to Hux. It felt like I was getting picked up and held,” he tells Rey’s feet. “I couldn't tell you in front of Finn and Poe Dameron because they aren't family like you. They have no reason to like me.”

Hux, the fascist, the murderer, the cultist, the villain.

Hux, Marin’s family.

Gently, she guides Marin’s chin to meet her eyes. “Listen very carefully. Friends are like family in some ways. Your family should be loyal and trusting and all those wonderful things, but sometimes they just aren’t.” An all too prevalent fault in the Skywalker bloodline. Rey takes Marin’s hand. “You don't get to choose your family, but you choose your friends. Friends are loyal no matter what. In a way that makes your friendships stronger than the blood that ties you to your family. Poe and Finn are your friends.”

Looking up to Rey’s height, Marin understands.

They approach the door to the medbay’s chamber, Marin’s young heart thudding like his boots do mid sprint. The door trundles open. He holds his breath.

The man strapped to the room’s bed must be Kylo Ren, but Marin would have no way of knowing. Where there should be a blaze of fierce firelight life of the great warrior Kylo Ren, there is instead an empty hole. The man in the bed is the room’s only inhabitant so this man must be Kylo Ren, large and immobilized by the cuffs on his wrists and ankles. Marin exhales. He's asleep.

Dark hair cascades down one cheek. His nose pokes out high and even, skin on the bridge of it rippled with freshly healed tissue. His jaw and chin are lined with uneven patches of hair, emboldening his restless frown. All these features are lessened in their strangeness due to the oblong scar bisecting his features, from one eye and down to the opposite side of his jaw. Marin can't tell if he's taller than Hux but his stomach looks less huggable than Hux’s under his medical gown, chest and shoulders broad beyond what he's seen in a lifeform. Maybe except Chewie. But Chewie looks huggable. If only he would let Marin hug him.

The sight of blood on his wrists and ankles make Marin squeeze Rey’s hand harder.

He doesn't understand how the technology of the collar works, but he does feel how it's robbing Kylo Ren of his Force-sensing and his Force-powers. His heart quivers in panic at the thought of something like that trapping him instead.

Kylo Ren is caught in a fitful cessation, eyes closed but sagging as if this is his first attempt at rest in days. Both Marin and Rey are afraid to speak, but Ren only pokes his chin into his neck, adding another layer to his frown.

Ren’s eyes fly open, dark and gaping. Marin can’t hold in his flinch. Here goes everything.

“Hi there,” is what Marin manages. He could slap himself. Years of dreaming of this moment and that’s the best he comes up with?

Kylo Ren doesn’t say anything. Blinking, staring at the boy unnervingly. Eyes squinting and releasing like he’s trying to decipher a block of code.

“How are you feeling?” Marin tries next. He leans into Rey’s comforting touch to his shoulder.

His only response is Kylo Ren’s silence. Ren flicks his eyes up to Rey then back down to Marin, unreadable.

“I've already heard so much about you,” Marin tells him. “And I've been dreaming of this moment my whole life.” He wavers on the last part of his proclamation, but he has to show Kylo Ren how important he is to him so he forces himself to say the words. “My name is Marin. That’s what everyone calls me. I chose it, like how you chose your name.”

Ren blinks his lethargic lids. The boy in front of him and the boy from his visions are near identical, except the boy here is younger, smaller. The boy is fearful, but not nearly as fearful as the boy from the end of his vision, eyes swallowing the light of the blue plasma blade.

He looks back up at the girl. She holds his glower, spitting it back to him. Ren keeps his mouth flat. He doesn't want to admit anything deep in front of the scavenger but his face was never meant to hide his emotions. “You named yourself?” Ren speaks up, holding his head level off his sweat soaked pillow.

Marin shifts his weight to the balls of his feet. “Yes, sir.” _Sir?_ Now he's just pushing it. He never called Hux ‘sir.’

Ren sinks his head down. Marin considers that a victory. At least he got to finally hear his voice. It's rougher and deeper and less melodic than Hux’s, but swings in the same way Grandmother’s voice does. “I chose it because I knew my father wanted me to have that name,” Marin explains.

Ren doesn't know what to say to that. It was probably a name Hux wanted because Ren never went so far as to want the boy to have anything of his own.

He's distracted by the boy's earnestness, how vivid he is compared to his memory of his vision. From the crystals brightening his eyes to the spots of freckles decorating his cheeks. The heaviness of the familiarity of the boy weighs his shoulders down. An odd, contrived feeling only resultant from his delusion.

They never had anything resembling a relationship. Each and every memory he has of the boy is false, fiction. Whether the visions were fantasy or a foretelling of his fate—it hardly matters. He’d do anything to keep them from coming to pass, anything to prevent him from cleaving Hux in half like a game-hunted animal. Ren longs for Hux to come back in with his bucket of soapy water and his thorough touch. A constant between his dreams and reality. The loneliness is exhausting.

It's Rey’s prompting that startles Ren. “Marin, why don't you tell him more about yourself and your journey?” She covets both their interests but would protect Marin’s life over that of his father’s any day. She meets Ren’s heedful stare.

Marin nods. “I grew up on a cold and windy planet with the caretakers, the droids, and they taught me how to speak and read and I'd advanced quicker than normal, so they left me with a library of all kinds of paper books about the galaxy, about humans and a few other lifeforms, and about nature and space, and the First Order and engineering. But I still have a lot to learn. I was hoping—” Marin cuts himself off around the closing of his throat. “I was hoping that maybe when you're all better. You would like to teach me a few things. About the Force.”

Ren glares to Rey again. “I'm not sure that's what they have planned for you,” he spits.

The sinister way in which Kylo Ren throws his words makes Marin recoil, bumping into Rey. “Rey’s going to teach me what she knows. I can learn from the both of you. Right?” he cranes his head up to Rey.

He's never seen Rey with such a disgusted expression. Luckily it's not directed anywhere near him, solely on his seething father. Regardless, it makes him wriggle with trepidation.

“Of course,” Rey says, not breaking eye contact with Ren. She knows conflict is not what Marin needs to see right now, so she restrains herself. “I'm sure Kylo Ren would like to hear more about your upbringing.”

She guides Marin to the chair aside Ren’s bed to encourage him to speak more freely. Marin sits on the chair, legs dangling from its height. “I don't really know what else to say!” he stage-whispers to Rey animatedly, like Kylo Ren isn’t sitting right there.

Unhelpfully, Ren stares at the space in front of him in silent indifference.

Marin continues in hopes he can impress his father. “Well, my planet is this place where instead of tall buildings, there are tall rocks. And forests where I used the tools my caregivers left me to hunt food.”  Boring, boring, boring. Kylo Ren says nothing. “And even Supreme Leader Snoke would visit me,” Marin adds, voice strained with hopefulness.

“Did he?” Ren asks.

He's a bit disappointed that it takes Supreme Leader Snoke’s name to get a reaction from his father. “He'd talk to me in my dreams. He told me all about how great of a warrior you are.”

Marin beams to Ren. His eyes squint in mirth and Ren’s heart brings all thoughts back to Hux. His and Marin’s resemblance is uncanny. “Did he tell you about Hux?” Ren blurts.

Unprepared for the inquiry, Marin’s heart stutters. “No. No one told me about Hux. Not even Grandmother.”

Ren’s chest depresses. “Who told you?”

“I found out Hux was my father—my _other_ father—from him. But he wasn't very forthcoming with the information. His heart was close to stopping before he said anything. I'm glad he did. I’m so comfortable when I’m talking with Hux.” Marin senses Rey’s encouragement, so he continues. “I figured out how to talk to him with just my head. Using my powers. I have a few different types of powers.”

Ren’s brow creases. He'd like to know the full extent of the boy's powers. But his questions about Hux end up taking precedence. “What did you talk about?”

Excited, Marin smiles up to Rey. Kylo Ren wants to more know about his talks with Hux. Things are finally feeling whole. “Everything and anything! He told me all about you and the e- _normous_ ship you both had. And about the Academy where he learned _everything_ that there is to know about being a general. And all his ideas for weapons. One time I talked about my weapons. Just my spitter and my knives and they weren't as great as his weapons. But I could tell he liked hearing about it...”

The boy continues to babble at an alarming fervency. As if they were old friends, Ren and the scavenger share a look of concern.

“And we also talk about you. Hux says you and him are friends again. Is that true?”

What a childish question. However, Ren is unable to feel any animosity, any inclination to be cruel. Not yet, anyway. “I guess,” he divulges.

“Because he told me you didn't always used to be friends. He said he was your ‘arch-enemy.’ Whatever that means. His vocabulary is so colorful,” he snorts. “What happened to make you arch-enemies?” Marin adjusts his bottom on the chair. “Was it because of me somehow?” he asks in a small voice.

The innocence of the question shocks Ren and he recoils at the memories it resurfaces. Hux strapped to a metal slab, Ren's droids probing him with no concern for his comfort or autonomy. His blatant disregard for Hux’s humanity, the degrading and violent methods of torture Ren had advocated for in an effort to control and humiliate him.

They most certainly were enemies back then. And after, when Snoke took control of their child. Ren’s stabbed with cross rage, directed inward as his projections are all trapped within the confines of the inhibitor collar. “Snoke. He didn't raise you?”

“No. The caregiver droids did. He left me after I made my spitter. Right after he hold me about the great star-eating weapon was going to be put to use against the Republic. He told me one day I would be your apprentice. It encouraged me to study all the texts the caregivers gave me so I could be prepared for my apprenticeship under you.”

It was all for nothing. Hux’s deep seeded loathing of him for the abuse Ren inflicted on him on the cloners’ planet, for taking the boy away, all for absolutely nothing.

Snoke had no use for Marin. He had deceived Ren into hurting Hux to create this child, only to abandon it and leave it in a life of squalor reading propagandist and liberalized texts. Making the boy malleable, manipulable, directly having a hand in causing him to side with the Resistance enemy.

None of this makes a single scrap of sense. Snoke did nothing besides let the boy fall in the hands of the damned Resistance! How can he trust Snoke’s methods now, when the lies are staring him right down the barrel? What else has Snoke lied to him about? When Ren escapes, Snoke will be his first stop.

Marin senses the shift in Kylo Ren’s feelings, even through the void of the Force inhibitor. Maybe Kylo Ren would be interested in hearing more of his hopes if he shares them. “I am very excited about learning everything there is to know about the Force. And maybe, I was hoping,” Marin fumbles with his words, a lifetime of eagerness, hopefulness in being united with his future master thrumming his veins. “I was hoping, since Supreme Leader Snoke said you made your lightsaber and I was hoping that we could make a lightsaber together—”

The magcuffs protest under Ren's violent spasm. Marin’s stricken by Ren’s lashing out, gaping in fear at his father.

Rey debates removing Marin as far away from him as possible, until Ren breaks the tense silence. “You want to be a Jedi?” he asks, escalating.

Marin looks to Rey for answers. She forces herself not to answer for him because this is Marin’s decision. Kylo Ren is Marin’s father and he deserves the dignity of discovering who Kylo Ren is for himself. But this might be too much for Marin to handle, after everything he’s been through, after everything Kylo Ren has tormented and destroyed—

“I don't…I don’t know,” the boy manages the fragile admission.

Ren doesn’t let up. “You've been among them for a while, haven't you?”

“Yes. But Luke said I'm to be trained in the ways of the Force. I don't know if I want to be a Jedi but Finn said it's my choice.” Finn said he and Kylo Ren never got along but he's proud of his own friendship with Finn. He doesn’t want to hide it.

But Ren doesn’t give a shit about what ‘Finn’ says. There's a pregnant pause before Ren lets loose. “They're gonna kill him, you know,” he glares up at Rey. “The Jedi. The Resistance. They're gonna execute him.”

Uncomprehending, Marin scrunches his forehead. Rey’s already picking the boy up by his shoulders and ushering him outside, cursing her own impulsiveness in bringing Marin in here in the first place.

“They're gonna kill Hux!” Ren roars after them. “If you join them there will be _nothing_ you can do to help him!”

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks you guys for reading!! and can i just add something quick: Along with all of you my heart goes out to Carrie and Debbie's family in this time of tragedy. I'm grateful for everything they've done for generations of women and girls, and hope that their family gets the time to mourn and celebrate their lives in peace.


	16. Chapter 16

 

 

Rey activates the closing mechanism to Ren’s cell, tugging a flustered Marin outside the mouth of the medbay. Finn is there, already knowing the verdict of the visit from the unhinged turmoil that ebbs Rey’s heart.

“What happened?” he drops his voice low. Where were Master Luke and General Organa during all of this?

She gives Finn a mere shake of her head. “I can’t—”

“It’s not your fault,” Finn promises. “Kylo Ren. He’s…” Lost. Evil.

Himself.

Marin stares at them both, glassy eyed and wrought with confusion. Kylo Ren said the Jedi plan on executing Hux. That can’t be possible. There’s no way they would do that. He’s their family, too! His heart leaps up to his throat. He wants to crawl back inside Hux’s mind again.

“Rey,” Marin mumbles, eyes filling with tears. He’s so, so incredibly scared.

“He was lying,” she tells him. “No one’s going to execute Hux.” A false promise. Lying to Marin, even for his own sake, unbearably sickens her.

Marin swabs away his tears with his sleeve. “But, he said—he said—”

“What he said doesn’t matter. You have to believe me.” Instilling false hope, pleading for trust in her lies. She’s never felt more like her father.

A a group of Resistance guards escort Hux to the docking bay, led by General Organa and Luke. Rey swallows. Hux’s arms are bound behind him in massive magcuffs, far more than a man of his slightness could possibly require.

 _“No!”_ cries Marin. He sprints over to the crowd of guards, weaving through the commotive sea of Resistance pilots and technicians. Finn and Rey chase after him.

Hux whips his head around at the upheaval, eyes boggling at the sight of Marin in the flesh. The boy’s face is contorted in pain. He’s lanced with the stark spike of Marin’s fear.

Marin wraps his arms around Hux’s waist, clinging with all his strength. Two guards spring to rip him off, only to be rendered unconscious by a flare of the boy’s emotion. They tumble to the duracrete of the docking bay. Desperately, Marin squeezes tighter. Hux can do nothing to comfort him with his arms bound, and can only manage a stunned gape at the contact.

“You can’t take him! Please don’t take him!” the boy sobs. With caution the remaining guards attempt to withdraw Marin from the prisoner despite General Organa’s direct order to stand down. They too fall into unconsciousness, toppling over one another like bricks.

Several Resistance fighters have drawn their weapons, instinctual in combat.

“Put your weapons down! All of you!” roars General Organa, unconditionally protective of the boy.

“Please, please, please,” Marin murmurs into Hux’s stomach. He latches onto the comfort of Hux’s firelight within. It’s where his own firelight came from. Why can’t they see that?

Finn and Rey approach, and Rey speaks up first. “Where is the prisoner going?”

This wasn’t supposed to happen like this. General Organa does what she’s always had to do. Compromise, make the impossible decisions. “We’re moving him to a more secure facility.”

“Where?”

“Rey…” she warns.

Rey looks to her father, helpless, caught between the lines of the battlefront. Marin’s despair is suffocating, and there’s no doubt his waves are tugging the three Jedi and General Organa further into conflict.

She looks to Marin, clutching onto the stick-thin warlord. The man is taut pensively as if aching to divulge and uncharacteristic reaction.

“Our other divisions have caught wind of his capture. It was only a matter of time,” General Organa tells her. “We’re delivering him to a secure facility where we can get the deathswitch implant looked at. And removed, if possible.” General Organa’s implications are damning.

It’s unreal feeling utterly forsaken, without all hope. Marin doesn’t know what he’s gonna do but he has to do something. And whatever it is, it better be smart and it better be quick. He doesn’t know what he’s gonna do—all the powerful Jedi warriors, his grandmother the general, the armed Resistance fighters and even the pilot Poe Dameron. They’re all so much more powerful than he is. There isn’t any time. There isn’t any _hope—_

“Hey,” whispers the voice of his father above.

Marin blinks upwards, trembling with his sniffles.

“Don’t cry. There isn’t any use to crying,” Hux tells him, patient and kind.

Marin nods, understanding. “I don’t want them to take you away. I don’t want them to execute you. Please tell me what to do. I don’t know how.” Another sob shakes loose but Marin does his best to quell it, straightening his back before his father.

“Think. Who do you have as an ally?”

Immediately he thinks of Rey and Finn. But are they Hux’s allies as well? Finn had renounced his allegiance with the First Order, and although Rey’s arguing with his grandmother there’s no guarantee she’d be willing to help Hux. Besides, Finn and Rey are the closest of friends. That only leaves…

 _Kylo Ren?_ Marin asks in Hux’s head. Marin’s foundations quake at the thought of talking to Kylo Ren again anytime soon.

 _He’ll help us,_ Hux sends in reply. _But you have to get him free or we won’t stand a chance. Just because you’re small doesn’t mean you’re weak. Strategize. Think._

“Marin,” Rey calls over, careful not to get too close. She doesn’t know if Marin’s powers are potent enough to have any effect on her and she doesn’t want to find out.

Marin doesn’t break eye contact with the prisoner, staring up at him in silent concentration.

“Marin,” Rey calls again. “Grandmother agreed he could stay for a few more days.” It’s what they both settled on, though Rey doesn’t know what good the extra days will serve. All she knows that it’ll give Marin more time to make peace with the reality of what is to come. “Marin? We’re going to take him back now.”

“Alright,” he replies. But Marin doesn’t turn around, all attention attached to the eyes of his father.

“Come here,” she encourages. Finn volunteers to take Hux back to his cell once Marin relinquishes his hold.

Marin warms at the sound of his father’s voice in his head. _You have more time now. Get to Kylo Ren and tell him it's time to go._

“I'll take you to visit him later,” Rey says to the boy. Though she already knows Marin talks to the prisoner whenever he pleases.

“Thank you, Rey,” he breathes, dabbing away what's left of his tears. There is hope for Hux. Marin cares for the Jedi, his family, but like Rey said—he can't always count on them to be loyal.

Marin is lead back to the sleeping quarters where they watch him and make sure he doesn't get into trouble. His gut quivers with guilt for what he has to do.

Once Finn returns from depositing the prisoner back in his cell, he joins Marin in the bunk opposite him.

“Finn,” Marin begs his attention from his pillow.

“Yeah, buddy?” Finn replies. The boy’s eyes swell under the torrent of fresh tears. Kylo Ren really did a number on the poor kid, that bastard. Not to mention the entire problem with the prisoner transfer.

“What's the most difficult thing you ever had to do?”

Finn furrows his brow. “What do you mean?”

Marin sits up, swimming in his sheets. “Have you ever had to make a really hard decision? Quite possibly something that you could never take back?”

A wave of unease seeps over him. “Why do you ask?”

“You're a Jedi. You're strong with the Force?” The boy changes tangents, wringing his hands on his knees.

“Not as strong as Rey or Luke but I trust my senses.” It's true. He's always had an intuition about him. Like now, he can sense Marin’s on the fence about something.

“And you trusted your instincts when you left the First Order?”

Finn nods. “Definitely.”

“Because you didn't believe in what they were doing?”

“Marin,” Finn levels, grave, “what did Kylo Ren say to you?”

The boy worries his fingers in his palms. “It’s no use repeating,” he tells Finn. He feels deceitful. Angry at himself, like when Kylo Ren shook in his bonds, skin splitting in the cuffs from rage. “I want to sleep now.”

Finn doesn’t get much time to object before the boy rolls over, curling atop his covers in the fetal position.

Instead of calling to the warm welcoming beacon of Hux’s mind, he pointedly ignores it. He focuses on the firelight lives of every member of the cruiser, including his grandmother and the Jedi, Poe Dameron and all the busy minds of the military personnel. He pushes, focusing. He can’t quite grasp onto everyone.

He ignores the void in the cruiser where he knows Kylo Ren is bound and shrouded from the living Force. He searches and searches—

There it is.

The tendril that beckons him. From the darkness, it brushes against his own firelight, silhouetting around the shadows. The darkness is everywhere, in and around every object and every being. It’s always been there, and always will be. Marin follows where it guides him, weaving in and out of every firelight life aboard.

He opens his eyes at the thud of a body hitting the floor. He turns over, gaping.

“Finn?” Marin pleads, shuffling off the bed. Finn’s eyes are closed. Marin puts a hand up by his nostrils and his chest. He’s okay. He’s only asleep. Marin smiles, a little manic. It worked!

Sprinting out of the residentiary wing, Marin ogles all the fallen bodies of the Resistance personnel. He checks to see if they’re alright. Thankfully they’re all asleep, sprawled all over the halls, some in groups and some alone.

Luke Skywalker is slumped against a wall, his metal hand on his lightsaber hilt. As if he felt Marin’s approach to his firelight, and was prepared to use his lightsaber against him. Marin frowns, filled with a hot contempt towards the old Jedi master. He pries the lightsaber from unconscious robotic fingers. He takes it with him, small hands firmly grasping the ridged hilt.

Marin stumbles upon Rey, fallen on her side in front of the large transparisteel window. Alone before the stars. His lip quivers. What he’s done, what he’s about to do—

There’s no coming back from this.

Blood throbbing in his ears, Marin approaches the medbay. He keys open the door to Kylo Ren’s room like how he saw Rey do. The door trundles open. Kylo Ren is waiting for him, chest heaving. He feels Kylo Ren’s confusion.

“Where’s the scavenger?” Ren demands. He doesn’t understand why the boy’s alone.

Marin paces closer. Ren’s eyes fall to the distinctive hilt of a lightsaber. Vader’s. He doesn’t move a muscle, frozen like a bludgeoned animal playing dead.

“Before I let you go,” the boy speaks. Weary, determined. “You have to promise me you’ll get Hux safe somewhere where they won’t hurt him. Promise?”

Ren nods, stricken speechless.

He’s betrayed the Jedi and his grandmother in order for Hux to be safe. Now a traitor, he does not belong with them. The boy tosses words around in his head, wrought with conflict. “And you have to take me with you,” he finally blurts.

Ren blinks. His tired eyes flick down to Vader’s lightsaber. “Where are the others?”

“They’re asleep. I don’t know for how long. You have to promise me, Kylo Ren,” the boy grips the saber, wriggling his thumb against it. “You have to take me with you.”

Kylo Ren’s wrists itch to be freed. “Alright.”

“That’s not enough. You have to promise,” he pleads.

“I promise,” Ren tells him. Earnest.

Marin nods, setting the saber on the floor. Ren visibly writhes with relief. He moves over to Ren’s bedside, investigating the collar. There seems to be an intricate locking mechanism. “I don’t know how to open it,” Marin laments.

For a moment, Ren’s eyes fall to the lightsaber. He squanders that idea, his fears bypassing all reason. He’s got to get that lightsaber out of the boy’s hands as soon as he can. “What do you see?”

“Um. Four little tabs and two holes. I could poke something in there. I’d need tools. I’ll be right back,” Marin jogs off without waiting for Kylo Ren’s feedback. They’re on a strict timetable.

Marin returns almost five minutes later, toting a set of small prongs from the next room. “Maybe if I slide the tabs while I put these in, something will give.”

Sounds like a plan. Ren nods, trying to hide the weariness from shining through his eyes as Marin comes close with the sharp prongs. He feels the metal of the collar hum around his throat. He closes his eyes. The collar pops off.

He’s flooded with the Force from every direction, his fingers extending with the swift electrocution. Simultaneously coming up for air after a grueling dive and cannon-balling into a cool swirl of water. Ren inhales sharply, basking in the fulfillment. He turns his face to the boy, warming around his clear, untainted beacon. Energy renewed, the cuffs pop off, rattling off the side of the muddled bed.

“It worked!” the boy shouts, excited, though unnecessary. He trembles before the firelight life now visible, its heat so bright and daunting. He thrums with both admiration and fear.

Gingerly, Ren lifts up his right arm, then his left. Muscles screaming around the newfound range of motion. He calls to the Force for guidance. It helps him to his feet. But all it takes is one step for Ren to fall to the ground, flat on his back.

Distantly he hears the gasp from the boy. “Are you alright?”

Ren hears a shuffle around his head. He calls to the Force to help him back up, but his request falls to deaf ears. Reverting back to the time he begged the Force to grant him ownership of Vader’s lightsaber from the traitor and the scavenger on Starkiller Base, but no such hand of the Force extended as it whipped past his face.

Two little palms greet his forehead, heaving him back to the present. “Hold still,” instructs the voice. It’s Marin, the voice of his son. Crisp, stabbing pain ignites all his nerves. For a beat, until all that’s left is the warm lull of exertion that blossoms after a sprint. He can bend his knees and elbows without tearing up, so Ren climbs to his feet.

“Do you feel better?” asks the boy, hope shining the greens and blues of his eyes.

Ren rolls his neck. He nods, eying the boy from his height.

Marin exhales a breath he hadn’t planned on holding. “Let’s hurry, then.”

They both breach the threshold of the door before Marin stops. “Oh wait.” He turns around for the lightsaber. They’d both forgotten it.

Grimly, Ren scrutinizes the boy picking the saber off the ground. Marin turns to him to offer the saber. “I figured you would need this.”

When Ren makes no move to take it, Marin bites his lip. Had he thought wrong? Does Kylo Ren not need a lightsaber to make their escape?

A memory. _He extends his hand, holding the lightsaber hilt like a peace offering. Han Solo's calm hand on his cheek. The blinding blue that floods his senses as he releases Solo’s body to the pull of gravitation below._

A vision. _The cool, prod of a lightsaber greets Ren’s back from behind. The metal blade of the bayonet an icicle, slicing through his spine and out the front side of him. It breaks the skin of his son who holds him tightly, chest to chest, but this matters little to him as he twists the blade within Ren with finality._

As if transported back from another reality, Ren blinks his lids rapidly. Straightening, shaking off the feeling of a ghost shouting his name. He takes the saber, its weight and girth foreign in his palm. “Where is he?”

Marin smiles. “This way. Hurry!”

In tandem they jog across the cruiser, dodging the fallen Resistance affiliates. Ren raises his brows. The kid really managed to do a lot of damage. The flaps of Ren’s medical gown threaten to slip off his body, but there isn’t any time to change.

“It’s down here.” Marin stops in front of his cell. Face to face with Hux, inches from the energy wall separating confinement and freedom.

Hux gapes through the veil of red, disbelieving. They’d actually done it!

Marin stabs at the panel, desperate to free Hux. Finally, the barrier breaks. Marin lunges, unable to stave his rush of elation. He grips Hux fiercely around his middle. “I did it, Hux. You’re going to be safe now.”

Sparing one open look to a neutral Ren, Hux sinks to his knees. He doesn’t think, just embraces the boy, clutching at his wild head of brown-blond hair. Hux’s throat swells around his newfound hope. He pulls back, hand cradling the boy’s head. “What happened to everyone else? Your grandmother?”

“I made them sleep so they wouldn’t try and stop us from leaving. They’ll be okay,” Marin tells him, assuring. “Kylo Ren is gonna take you somewhere where they can’t execute you or keep you prisoner. And I’m coming along, too. It’s gonna be just us. And I know you and Kylo Ren aren’t on the best of terms, but I believe we can make it work. You might not be able to go back to the First Order just yet but now that Kylo Ren is with us, I can start my training and I can get strong enough to help you get back your power,” the boy grins.

Marin whips his head to Ren, who stands coiled and withdrawn as if the whole place might blow. He doesn’t pay much mind to Kylo Ren’s bristled contempt. He’s always looked like that. That’s probably just his constant state of being due to his rugged lifestyle. Marin smiles back to Hux. Hux’s constant state of being is much more welcoming.

Sunny sincerity glows Marin’s features. Hux's never seen or felt such brightness in a lifeform. He's is at a total loss to how he and Ren could have possibly off-sprung such a creation, his light a foreign radiance Hux will never, ever be able to understand.

Hux doesn’t have any words to paint his feelings into reality. So he pulls the boy close, placing a whiskered kiss on his temple. He’s hopelessly lost in the vibrancy that he fails to realize the implications of skipping out on the Resistance. He and Ren had a plan—employ the Jedi and the Resistance to defeat Snoke, and they can rejoin their once-comrades back on the Finalizer. Pressing one more kiss to Marin’s brow, he stands. His hand a warm anchor atop the boy’s head.

“Ren,” Hux relinquishes his hold on Marin, who gravitates towards Hux from behind like a dutiful moon. “The plan. We can’t leave just yet.”

Ren meets his gaze, reeling from Hux’s unabashed display of affection towards the boy. It’s like he’s in another dream.

Hux repeats himself, tethering Ren back into wakefulness. “The plan! It won’t work without them.”

“We don’t have time to negotiate,” Ren glowers. This is all getting out of hand. They need to run while they have the chance.

Marin stares at the twin sneers of his two fathers. He tucks the image of them together away in his vast memory bank, unable to help the impulse. He looks forward to the future when they aren’t arguing, where he’ll store more mental pictures of them together. A future when they’re happy and without the pressure of capture or punishment.

“Marin,” Ren speaks down to the boy, but his eyes never waver from Hux’s. The name is foreign on his tongue. It feels wrong. “Go to the docking bay and find us a ship.”

Marin doesn’t know the first or last thing about preparing ships. But it’s something his father asked him to do, so he complies, racing towards the docking bay. Good thing he knows just the ship that will get them to safety.

Clenching his fists, Hux lurches in the direction the boy ran off to, the distance already jarring. Only to be stopped with Ren’s enormous hand on his bicep. “Let go of me. You aren’t going to back out of what we agreed, not like this.” Not when he’s a hairsbreadth away from having everything he’s ever longed for.

Before Hux can formulate an objection, Ren moves his hand from his arm to his jaw. Unfettered remorse glimmers in his eyes. But Hux doesn’t have time to decipher what it means when Ren dives in to seal their mouths together. Hux flares, surging into Ren’s lips. His human vulnerability peaking, muting any and all retort and reasoning.

Pure sensation. Hux’s heart starts back up again, shunning his rational thought. He kisses Ren back, angry eyes slipping shut. Familiar and renewed, like returning home after a decade lost spaceside.

The penetration of darkness envelopes Hux and he slackens into unconsciousness. Ren groans, supporting Hux’s limp body against his. Ren thumbs Hux’s slack, betrayed face.

Wrapping Hux in a nonreciprocal embrace, he hides his grief in the juncture of Hux’s neck. Face twisting, Ren holds him tight. Guilt burying him alive. He’s running out of air.

In the docking bay, Marin scouts the Millennium Falcon for any further hindrances without any real clue what to look for. He manages to activate the boarding ramp with a trigger on the side. He stands guard, scoping out for any movement in the sea of toppled over bodies. A chill skates across his skin at the sight of his own handiwork. His eyes fall on the slumped over form of his grandmother, her arm twisted. He prays he didn’t hurt her.

After a tense moment, Kylo Ren emerges from the mouth of the docking bay. Marin bolts towards him in alarm. Hux is flopped over Kylo Ren’s shoulders, Ren supporting him with two hands at Hux's bony wrist and knee.

Marin pales. Did he somehow hurt Hux too when he used the darkness to neutralize the Resistance? “What happened?” asks Marin, frantic.

Kylo Ren’s eyes are rimmed with red, ignoring the boy’s inquiry. “Is the ship ready?”

The ship. Yes. “Right over there! The other ships aren’t ready, but I think Chewie was priming this one earlier. I sure hope you know how to fly it.” Surely enough, the furry puddle of the Wookiee to the side by the ship confirms Marin’s suspicions. 

Adjusting his grip on Hux’s appendages, Ren’s gut sits solid with dread, taking in the spectacle of the Millennium Falcon. “Yeah, I can fly it,” he admits. The cool hilt of the lightsaber sits tucked into the side of his underwear against his skin.

As a unit they climb aboard, Ren’s senses flooding with the distinctive mustiness of the aging freighter. Mildewing plastics, dried and cracking duraleather, the faint fizz of irritating yet harmless gasses leaking into the living space. The iciness of the grates covering the smuggling compartments dig into the bare soles of his feet like a bed of nails, flagellating under the additional weight of Hux over his shoulders. He finds a bunk to set Hux down on, mournfully adjusting his body atop it.

Marin perspires worriedly at the state of Hux’s unconscious form. “I didn’t mean to do that to him. But I think he’ll be alright,” he tells Ren. Oblivious.

Ren ignores him over the pounding of his head. He marches into the cockpit, priming the sublight engines using Solo’s meticulous tabs and wiring. It's beyond tedious but Ren manages to get it started, fumbling with the familiar switches.

Marin joins him in the cockpit, climbing atop the copilot’s chair and vibrating with adrenaline. This is finally it. Nothing has ever felt so right. He grins excitedly to Kylo Ren, not paying mind to the hollowness that stares back.

Ren’s finger hovers over the controls for the boarding ramp. In the future, they spend their days by a lakeshore, evenings spent around a bonfire under the infinite skyscape of stars. Hux safe in his arms, their son asleep and at peace.

But it’s a facsimile of peace, a distraction from the fire that eats at the world around them. The darkness will follow him until it claims his soul. Ren envisions a future that doesn’t end in bloodshed, liberated from the fear and the anger, the hate and the suffering.

There’s one thing that he can do to ensure that future never comes to pass. Sickness rises in his throat. “Aren’t you forgetting something?” he grates.

Marin frowns, squinting in thought, scouring his memory.

“The ramp,” his father clarifies, voice hoarse.

Of course the ramp! Marin thought there was a closing switch in the cockpit but he doesn’t remember where it is. They don’t have much time, so he bypasses argument and sprints to the boarding ramp to activate the closing mechanism.

A surge of invisible energy propels Marin into the air, down the ramp and face first into the rough duracrete of the hangar. He tumbles away like he’s falling down a hill, unable to stop until he hits the closest wall. Wrought with confusion, panic, Marin gets to his knees, trembling with effort.

The boarding ramp seals definitively. Gaping, Marin limps toward the departing freighter. The Millennium Falcon’s engines glow and Marin is thrusted backwards, skull splitting against the wall.

His parents dissolve in the vast enormity of hyperspace within the blink of an eye.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *extreme home makeover guy voice* I heard you liked daddy issues so i got you a daddy issues bed and installed a daddy issues treehouse in your living room and we are paying for surgery for you to look like a daddy issues
> 
> jokes aside, we will have an indepth look at kylo's motives for betraying his son in the next updates !! (though its all kind of not that veiled in this chapter)
> 
> thanks so much for reading!! :)


	17. Chapter 17

Marin stares at the empty spot the Millennium Falcon once docked, eyes bleary with gushes of tears.

Footsteps. He twists his head around. Luke Skywalker approaches, his aged face hanging with milky sorrow. His sobs renew at the sight of the old Jedi master. He can't speak.

Luke squats down next to the boy, sitting on his bottom. He frowns to Leia’s crumpled form, to the sea of toppled Resistance fighters, to the furry heap of Chewbacca with a tool next to his limp hand.

Before Luke had lost consciousness, he had felt the deceitful, ominous weeding of the dark side enveloping the cruiser. Once he connected eyes with Rey, hand on his lightsaber, the darkness invaded his mind and pulled him into its damning depths. After he woke, discovering his lightsaber-less hand, it didn't take much to find the source of the darkness. He followed the pull of shock and despair, emanating from the docking bay.

“What happened?” Luke asks the boy, dreading the answer.

Clawing at his hair with scarred fingers, Marin sobs and sobs. Hopeless. The dirty-blond, bloodstained roots strain and pop. “I'm so, so, so sorry,” he wallows.

Marin’s projecting of his memories in desperation to find out what went wrong, and it's then that Luke can see what happened. Luke sees Marin concentrate on his anger, confronting the dark side on his own accord for the first time in his young life. He sees him take Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber from his hip, presenting it to Ren for his protection. Marin embracing the prisoner, warming from kisses and projections of love and affection, promise and hope carrying his heart high and soaring.

Marin getting spat out of the Falcon like a piece of garbage, abandoned and forgotten.

Luke is crushed under the weight of sorrow. For Marin, for the daughter he’d abandoned on Jakku. He wraps his arm around Marin’s quaking shoulders, holding him as he cries and cries.

 

\--

 

Kylo Ren calls out to his master, reaching over their connection. The swirl of hyperspace glows around the boxy lining of the Falcon’s viewport. He mops a hand through the sweat matted hair irritating his forehead, concentrating.

What Snoke replies with is a prickle of surprise. Lined with impatience and contempt, concluding with the reluctant coordinates for his smoky, toxic moon. Ren programs the coordinates, eyes glazing as his master reaches inside of him to erase them from his memory.

Once, long ago, Ren was tempted enough to scrawl the coordinates down on a slip of paper, a childish act of defiance. Snoke disapproved and as a punishment he took away Ren’s ability to write and read. The struggle to relearn the abilities was surreal—twenty years old and slaving over children’s books and home-schooling audio programs for toddlers, frustration and shame bringing him to tears—but it was the push he needed to have faith in his master’s methods.

The freighter adjusts course. One of the many advantages to the Millennium Falcon is that they don't have to break from hyperspace to change the navigation, a common ability of modern freighters but an efficient modification to the ancient Corellian hardware, ahead of its time.

He hears the voice of a ghost explaining the details of the manual modifications. The ghost chuckles and jibes over old, tired stories with an easy grin and expressive blue-gray eyes. Ren ignores its haunting familiarity. He trudges to the hall. He needs clothing.

Somehow after all the decades, his memory supplies him with the whereabouts of an emergency supply of food, clothes, and water. There is even a pair of large boots.

Tentatively, Ren reaches out with his senses. Hux is still out cold. With any luck it will be a few more hours until he wakes.

There's nothing Ren can do to prepare himself for what is to come.

From the cramped storage crate, Ren tugs out the boots, pair of black cargo pants, a white long sleeve shirt, a simple belt, and a navy blue vest. The vest is the most worn item of clothing, its lapels twisted from the storage.

He hears the ghost’s voice again, telling him how a man's life is spent in his uniform. How revisiting the clothing brings a man back to the most treasured times of his life, specifically the time he'd laid siege to the Empire's Death Star.

Some treasure, Ren thinks, entombed in the Falcon like a hidden relic. He shakes the shirt, pants, and belt out, letting them breathe. The vest gets shucked back into storage, left behind for the ghost.

Ren locates the refresher, haphazardly rinsing himself down in the basin. He strips off the filthy medical gown and his overused slip of underwear and stuffs them in the garbage, setting Vader’s lightsaber on the Millennium Falcon’s toilet seat. The wrinkled shirt tugs over his head, the breadth of his chest stretching the fabric taut. He tests the give, rolling his shoulders. It appears to fit.

Next come the pants. There weren’t any pairs of briefs but he’s just relieved to be in pants, and although they're too tight over his thighs, they clasp around his waist just fine. He slips on the boots, high on his calves. The belt is last and Ren clips Vader’s lightsaber to it with conclusiveness.

Distantly, he hears shuffling. Hux is awake.

Guilt festers. He thought he had more time.

Hux stands in the center of the strange cockpit, the unmistakable whirl of stars striping around the viewport. Confusing lines of switches, buttons, and levers decorate the control panel. There's a pair of oversized toy dice hanging above, bobbing with the vibrations of hyperspace. Hux scowls in disgust at the reflections of the Resistance’s simplemindedness.

He spins around. Ren is there, standing still like a trapped animal afraid to move. Instead of his medical gown, he's in a wrinkled outfit that reminds Hux of a roguish pirate. “Where is he?” His heart speaks for him.

Ren wavers. “He’s with them.”

Hux’s throat bobs, ice bleaching his veins. “Why?”

“It had to be done,” Ren confesses.

Ren says something else, but Hux doesn't hear it over the pulse in his ears. Blinking his eyes around the befuddling memory of the moments before he passed out—Marin running to the hangar, dirty blond head bouncing along in his spirited sprint.

Ren’s hands on him. Being kissed for the first time since Ren had last kissed him nearly a decade ago, warm and electric. The penetration of darkness, a loathsome sensation he’s familiar with.

Hux clutches at his abdomen. Twisting around the seethe of betrayal.

“We're on our way to Snoke.” Ren pauses but Hux says nothing. “He has to answer for what he’s done. He’s the only one powerful enough to trap me in my head and lead us to capture. And he shrouded me from Phasma’s deception. If I had known she'd come for my troops, I could have stopped her and we’d never be in this mess.” Ren steps closer to Hux's hunched back. His shoulder blades protrude through the thin fabric of the sweat shirt.

“And for lying to me,” Ren continues, wavering spinelessly. “He said he'd raise our son and teach him the ways of the Order but he liberalized him and left him to droids. He left him susceptible to the Jedi’s manipulation. Now Marin’s aligned with the enemy—”

Ren's jaw cracks audibly from the vehemence of Hux’s punch, choking on his words. Blind with agony, Ren quavers in the doorway. Another fist comes, marring his proud cheekbone and sending him into a crumple against the doorframe. He dares meet Hux’s eyes. Where he expects rage to sear instead glimmers raw heartbreak.

“The only reason,” Hux sobs, “that he's with _them_ , is because you left him there. Don't you say his name, you fucking animal.”

Absurdly, Ren turns body into the wall. As if he can escape this, as if he could run.

Hux’s fingernails reopen the blisters on the insides of his fists. Rage throttles him. “Look at me.”

Ren complies, meeting his eyes. The beast’s got the nerve to cry. Hux flares, gripping Ren’s bruised, throbbing jaw between two clawed palms. “Turn this thing around. We’re going back.”

“It’s done,” Ren says. It’s done. It’s over.

“We have to go back. Turn this damned ship around,” he repeats, smaller this time. Wounded, chipped away.

“It’s done.” Resounding. There’s no changing what’s happened.

Flashing openly with grief, Hux feebly attempts to control it, tightening with practiced anger. “Ren, you better turn this ship around or—”

“Or what?” Ren shatters, tumultuous like a landslide. He swats Hux’s hands away, invading his space. “It’s done. I did it and it’s done and there’s no taking it back! It’s done already! You’re going to have to live with it! It’s done! It’s _over!”_ Shoulders heaving in the ghost’s wrinkled shirt, Ren’s bruised jaw grates his rows of teeth. His ears ring and he maintains Hux’s mirrored glare, heart beating through its ache.

Hux stalks past him, stifling his watery gasps. He searches the walls of the wretched, dilapidated vessel for some indication of a refresher to lock himself away where Ren can't find him.

Finally after his tireless scouting a panel gives to the trundle of a refresher stall, fitted with a sink and toilet. He seals himself away, rolling his palms over his eyes. His bones itch with a newfound weakness, brittled as if from a lifetime suspended in zero gravity. Aged with his misery, victimized by his loneliness. His hands skate under the elastic of his pants, rubbing low over his uneven, hairless patch of skin low under his navel. Tears renew to cloud his vision further.

Ren is selfish, chaos. He should never, ever count on him to do anything besides act in how own self-interest. It’s fact. Ren will always be his torment.

None of this would have ever happened if he didn’t let Marin go, all those years ago. He let Marin go. It’s clear as crystal now that Ren’s ripped them apart again. He let his baby go. He let him go then and he doesn’t deserve him _now_ , too weak to even keep him for little more than a moment. He doesn’t deserve him. And he never will.

He closes his eyes, pulling up his mental pictures. Heartstrings snapping. Succumbing to sentiment.

 

\--

 

“We can track the Falcon once it’s out of hyperspace,” Poe deliberates once most of the docking bay personnel have woken up and checked for injury. “But there’s no telling when they’ll pull out, and the longer it takes for them to do so, the better their head start is.”

General Organa nods, arm pinching uncomfortably from her tumble. She doesn’t believe it’ll be that simple. Ben knows that ship all too well, second only to its original mechanic. And Chewie, of course.

When she woke up from her contorted collapse, she found Luke and Marin in the hangar, her brother passing gentle waves of comfort to the weeping boy. Her senses told her Ben was long gone, that Marin withered with cross, confused betrayal.

“You were going to execute Hux,” Marin pleads, sitting against a wall. “I-I had to do something.” His words sound like lies to his ears, unconvincing and weak.

General Organa brushes her thumb around the bruise mottling the boy’s cheekbone. He hasn’t healed it yet with his powers, and the realization breaks her heart. “I understand why you did it.” She can’t blame him for trying to do the right thing, for following his heart.

“I was so stupid,” the boy sniffles. “I thought he wanted—I thought we were all going to be together—I thought—”

“Shh,” the general tugs Marin’s head to her chest, weary of his injury. “We’ll find him. I promise. And we’ll scold him until he apologizes, how’s that sound?” she smiles, radiating comfort.

“He hates me,” Marin squeaks, her assurance doing nothing to ease his agony.

In times like these, her soul aches for Han. He was far from perfect but he always knew the right words to say. “That’s not true. He could never hate you. We’re gonna find that punk and set him straight. Smack some sense into him. Got it?”

She feels Marin nod against her chest and she holds him tighter.

The shock of Kylo Ren’s treatment towards him is like a big avalanche of ice over his head. Marin’s heart feels like it’s getting squeezed and squeezed, released, squeezed and rereleased just before it can pop. He desperately scopes out Hux’s firelight but all he feels around the cruiser is the empty void of space.

As if he could reach him from vast, interstellar distances with his meager powers. He’s weak, not even worth Kylo Ren’s time. He wants to see Hux again, hear his melodic voice. He wants to see Kylo Ren again to ask him why.

If the Resistance ever finds Kylo Ren, surely they’d find Hux along with him. And Hux would be captured and hurt again, or worse, executed. He sobers, privately wishing that they never, ever find him. He cares about Hux more than his own happiness.

Maybe Kylo Ren has Hux’s best interests at heart, too. But why couldn’t he just _come with them_ , after all he proved to his father? He showed Kylo Ren a great many of his talents, freed him, healed him, took care of Hux and lead their escape. Wasn’t that enough? Is he truly that worthless in his father’s eyes?

All eyes prod in his direction, including Poe Dameron. The Resistance fighters all see his true darkness, and they hate him. Out in his peripherals he sees Rey and Finn talking to each other and looking at him. They hate him, too. He lied and deceived them. Now he has nothing.

At least his grandmother still cares for him. Luke was nice, too, even though Marin stole his lightsaber. Another wave of guilt drowns him. He feels so terrible about the lightsaber.

Across the way, Rey parts with Finn to approach Marin, guilt encroaching her. If she hadn’t pushed Marin to speaking with Kylo Ren, none of this would have happened. But Hux would have been transported and likely imprisoned until his execution, and Marin would be without his birth parent. Though now, he has neither of his fathers. But at least they’re alive. Free to roam the galaxy, murdering and pillaging.

“Can I talk to you, Marin?” he hears Rey behind him.

Stiffening, Marin frowns to Rey. His grandmother relinquishes her hold. Probably leaving to attend to more important matters, he thinks sullenly.

Rey helps Marin to his feet. “Long ago, my father abandoned me. He thought it was for the best, to protect me from the dark side. And worst of all, he took all my memories away. Of my life with him and my few precious memories of my mother.”

Marin gapes, sorrowful for Rey’s personal tragedy. An all too prevalent theme in life in this galaxy, it would seem.

“But today, after everything,” she continues, “my father is now my Jedi master.”

His jaw drops. “Luke is your father?” He twists his head around to Luke who is busy instructing the crowd of pilots. The new light that casts over him shines back through the chrome robotics of his metal hand.

She nods, and Marin can see what heaviness leaves her muscled shoulders at the admission.

“He left you to protect you?” How can that be? How does abandonment constitute love and care?

“That he did. With the Jedi slaughtered, he had to separate me from all connection to him, even rip my memories from me so I’d never try to find him. He exiled himself, too. But the galaxy brought us together and he gave me my memories back, and we've been training together ever since.” Luke had returned her memories upon their reunion, clarifying her vision from her first brush with Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber in Maz Kanata’s castle.

But in the end it was Rey that graced Luke and reminded them of their family’s legacy, their duty to preserving peace in this galaxy as a Jedi. They’re stronger, safer together than they were apart.

Marin swipes at his cheeks, agitating his abrasion from the concrete. “Have you forgiven him?”

She blinks once, considering. “I've started to,” Rey tells him. It’s the truth. It’s slow going, tentative. Painful. But it’s the truth. Learning the truth of her family’s abandonment was torturous but the forgiveness grows in her heart.

Yet the question begs—does Kylo Ren deserve such forgiveness? For slaughtering the Jedi, including her mother? For surrendering his humanity in the pursuit of a lust for power, ripping the galaxy apart under a fascist regime, taking countless innocent lives? Murdering his father in cold blood and abandoning his child like garbage, leaving his hopes and spirits, his entire life shorn to tatters?

Rey will have to find her own answer, as Marin will have a lifetime of discovering his. She palms the uninjured side of his face, soothing him with a sisterly comfort. Together they head to Control where the team will discuss what their next course of action is against the heinous First Order.

 

\--

 

Hux flushes his face under the faucet’s hiss. In the dim reflective surface of the mirror, his lids sag with the evidence of grief. He scratches at his jaw. The hair there is thick and itchy. Heavy, a mark of his years on the run from bounty hunters, cast away because of _Ren_. The more he thinks about its mark, its taint, the more it itches.

He fumbles around the refresher until he finds what he needs. An electric razor, a simple design with a tapered edge. It turns on, vibrating in his palm. He drags it across his cheek, leaving a satisfying bare strip of skin. He's just as pale underneath the newfound smoothness. Half his jaw bare, he sheds the hair from his chin and around to the other side. The basin collects the pile of red fuzz.

Rinsing his hands, he laves the water over his sensitive jaw. The reflection peers back at him. His hair hangs around his face, long and limp, tickling his defined jaw. Somehow without the beard he looks even more disheveled.

His back stiffens at Ren’s silent persistence outside the door. Hovering like a dutiful droid. Refusing to yield, Hux shucks open the door. Glowering, meeting his adversary’s eyes. “What?” he accuses.

Ren’s face pinches, taking in Hux’s bared jaw. “I wanted to make sure you were alright.”

What a ludicrous, absurd sentiment. Wordlessly, Hux shoves past him, marching to the cockpit. He plants himself on the pilot’s chair. Staring condemningly at the swirl of stars.

“Snoke,” Hux begins after several long minutes of silence and stargazing. “You were able to call for his location?” He doesn’t turn around, speaking to the control panel.

Boots clicking softly in the humming of the Falcon, Ren joins him at the copilot’s chair. “Yes,” he confirms, ogling Hux’s frowning profile. His lips protrude full and fine against his now bare jaw. Ren’s urge to touch him tingles in his fingertips. But that’ll never be allowed to happen again. He knew this would be so the moment he chose to shove Marin out of the freighter. He accepts the torment, Hux’s resentment building an unbreakable wall.

“Why now? Why is Snoke letting you find him now?” When Ren responds with confusion, Hux scoffs. “Just before you collapsed and got us captured, you were reaching to Snoke. You said so yourself. He trapped you in your mind and plagued you with delusion. Now he wants a visit? Don’t you think there’s something wrong with the picture?”

Ren considers Hux’s criticism. “He’s my oldest ally.”

“That’s horrendously naïve.” Hux wants to hit him again, but Ren’s got quite a bit of goosing on his face already. And tragically, what satisfaction he envisioned from delivering the blows never truly came.

“Snoke has his reasons. I just have to find out what they are.”

Hux turns his head, glaring. “You’re a selfish fucking idiot.”

“Tell me something I don’t already know,” he mutters moronically. Ren sinks back in his chair. He feels the ghost animate in his movements through the wrinkled clothes. This isn’t the first time this kind of conversation has been held in this cockpit between two passionate people at odds.

Hux slips the grimace from his lips but the seething remains a spark behind his eyes. “Your delusion. What happened? You never explained.” He recalls Ren’s asthmatic wheezing, bound to the bed, his begging daze, the nonsense he divulged about the three of them being together. Together, a family. He needs to know why Ren would squander any hopes at recreating that vision, having been so distraught to learn the truth.

Ren believed they were together. He wanted it. What changed? What in that senile, tormented brain of his made him change his mind?

Taken back, Ren twitches his lips. “It wasn’t real.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Hux is trying to hurt him, but his heart has already faltered beyond the point of repair. “I was training on the planet—the same planet I lived on after Starkiller failed and your exile. Then I was on a beach and I saw you. Dead. You’d been dead for some time. Then I thought I woke up from a nightmare, lying flat on my back with my bones broken. And then the boy,” ‘the boy’ he calls him for Hux’s sake, because Hux doesn’t want to hear the boy’s name on his lips, “he mended me. He healed all my fractures with his powers.” His explanation is disjointed around the malformed memory of it all. He can’t quite recall the order of events properly, but the timeline seems to make sense to Hux.

Ren forces himself to be as blunt as possible, the delusion a fresh scar on his psyche. “And I chased him into the woods because I didn’t understand who he was, what was happening. And found you, alive and smiling. And when the boy ran right into your arms, you acted like nothing strange was happening. That it was just another day in paradise. On the run from Snoke and the Republic. It was—peaceful.”

He fails to mention the lightsaber workshop, his horseplay with the boy. His ghostly visions and the boys tears—his strangling guilt unable to form into explicit words. He fails to mention how he made love to Hux under the stars, how he never wanted to leave the protection of Hux’s thin arms.

“And then there was an accident. And you died. Just like how I saw you in the beginning. It was foretold.” A peek into the future. Doomsday. Ren’s ensured that future will never come to pass.

“I died? And what did you do?”

Ren’s lips twist into a self-depreciating smile. “I freaked out.”

“There’s no way that’s the future, Ren,” Hux shakes his head. Ren is truly a piteous creature. Hux strives to worsen his torment.

“How can you be so sure?”

“You’re not gonna outlive me.” Hux eyes the skin above the deathswitch’s time bomb entombed in Ren’s chest.

“And why’s that?” Ren raises a brow, shocked yet warmed by the familiarity of Hux’s threatening brand of banter.

Now’s as good a time as any. “While you were out cold I injected you with a deathswitch in your heart.”

Scowling in confusion, Ren rubs at his chest. He’s familiar with the hostage-keeping methods outlaws and bounty hunters use to avoid persecution. As a fugitive, Hux would have likely found a way to use such a device to his advantage. “It’s linked to you?” he gapes.

Hux sneers, the ugly expression twisting his features. “Forever and ever,” he taunts.

Instead of rage, Ren flows heavily with resigned, unperturbed bereavement. As if he anticipated this fate. It’s a fitting fate. Ren would never have expected to outlive Hux for very long, anyway. In his vision, when he’d slain Hux at his own manic hand, the only thing he wanted was revenge, then imminent death.

“Oh,” is what Ren comes up with, disturbingly, morbidly _glad_ he’ll never have to experience life in this galaxy ever void of Hux’s fire. Even in this life, a life where Hux hates him and will do whatever he can to stay far, far away from him. Even when they are apart, so long as his heart beats with life, he’ll have the comfort that Hux's beats too.

 _‘Oh’_ is not what Hux expected at all. He studies Ren’s oblong swells of skin around his mouth where the muscles tug into a perpetual pout. He vows not to be manipulated by the enigma of Kylo Ren. “So you don’t have to worry about your delusion coming to life,” Hux glowers. “It makes sense, now. You were remarkably disappointed when I told you the truth about your delusions, that you dreamt of my death. I’m so, so sorry that it’ll be impossible for that fantasy to ever be your reality, now that we’re linked by the blood,” he spits.

Ren prickles, hurt yet satisfied. He’d finally gotten a rise out of him. “How, after everything, do you still think I hate you? I’m protecting you. Everything you’ve ever blamed me for—I did it all to protect _you!”_ Hux’s years of exile, leaving the boy behind—all things Ren did to protect him that fuel Hux’s hatred for him. “I left him there so you would be protected. And now, I’m going after my master to confront him for his lies and deception. He’s the one that stripped you of your power. He’s the one who soiled the boy and made him align with the enemy! So, tell me, how could you think I hate you?” Convinced of his actions, defensive at every turn.

How brilliantly misguided is this man? Hux could laugh in his face. But he doesn’t. There’s nothing funny about any of this. “You took him away. _Again_. He wanted to come with us. He wanted to be with us.” The confession wrenches from his heart, unable to be quelled. He doesn’t recognize himself, twisted with fool hearted sentiment. Hux hasn’t been a man his father would be proud of in years. If he ever was, at all.

Standing to his feet, Ren looms over him. “I did what I had to do. I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t have a choice—I had to do it!”

Hux shoots up to Ren’s space. “You did what was best for you. With no regard for anyone else!”

“What did you think was gonna happen if he came with us? Did you think you were gonna take care of him?” Ren spits, scornful. Because he must make Hux come to his senses. But if Hux is incapable of understanding what he’d just prevented in abandoning Marin, if Hux must hate him, then so be it.

Ren’s insults barely affect him. “I see right through your shit. Admit it. You were scared.”

Fuming, Ren turns on his heel to pace.

“I’ve seen what burdens you. Your fucking Force or whatever showed me just how you murdered your bandit father. You’re terrified that one day, when you’d least expect it, history would repeat itself and _your_ son will murder you in cold blood. Guess what? You can’t escape it. He’s already begun to hate you,” Hux hisses. _Like I hate you_ , his brain tells him. But the words don’t form. Brittle, false, insincere thoughts, powdering away to dust.

The muscles of Ren’s back ripple underneath the white shirt, undulating with his labored breaths. Wheezing violently, Ren keeps his face away, desperate to get his lungs to cooperate. The spasms only worsen. Ripping him apart from the inside out.

Concern trickles through, as involuntary as instinct. But Hux ignores it and gathers his rage, focusing his vilification. He refuses to be swayed by Ren any longer. “You’ve been absolutely consumed with your selfish fear. From the beginning when you forced me to carry him, you never wanted a child. Only someone else to use for power. You have no honor, no loyalty.”

Ren feels the ghost shouting at him, barking his given name, the name General Organa still uses. He hiccoughs into the film on his palms, throat constricting around the blaze of the attack. His back to Hux, ignoring. He refuses to ask for help.

“Only fear,” Hux forces himself to continue. “Fear drives you. That you’ll never be as powerful as Darth _fucking_ Vader. That you’re fated to die at Marin’s hand.”

The cockpit is filled with Ren’s violent wheezes.

Hux can’t take it any longer. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he exasperates, resigned.

Ignoring him, Ren wavers to the copilot’s chair. Cradling his forehead in one palm, eyes pinched closed. Coughing and heaving every miserable breath.

There probably isn’t any medicine on board. At the threat of recapture, Hux doesn’t recommend they go planetside for some.

Behind Ren’s closed lids, Hux looks back at him. Green eyes radiating assurance, palms on his cheeks warm with comfort. A parody of the real thing. It helps until it doesn’t, until Ren crashes back down to reality because the real Hux is outside the confines of his deranged mind. The fuming, hateful, sneering Hux he’s accustomed to. His lungs tighten, spasming into a renewed fit.

Hux gapes at the swirl of stars for answers. There are none, only Ren’s distracting breathing.

“Ren,” he begins, approaching from behind.

His lungs rattle, grating like pebbles on the bed of his palms.

Sighing audibly, Hux shuffles around the cockpit for something resembling a canteen. He finds nothing and opts toward the refresher where he knows he saw an old tinny cup for spitting.

Hux carries the nearly full cup to the cockpit where Ren’s slumped, elbows on his knees.

Slim hips fill the corner of Ren’s eye, between the cracks of his fingers. “Drink this,” Hux instructs. Just impatient enough to get across that the only reason he’s trying to help because he wants him to shut up.

Ren knows the water won’t do much but he downs a gulp it anyway. Naturally, some trickles down the wrong pipe and the reflex is immediate. He coughs violently, splattering the water all over the control panel and the front of Hux’s sweats. Thrashing, desperate for air. The Falcon’s panel hisses a protest at the spill, malfunctioning.

Shit, Ren. Impulsively, Hux bends at the waist, grabbing Ren by his ears. “You need to calm yourself.”

Something behind him buzzes and beeps and Hux whips around to find the source of the issue. Nothing but chaos. None of the buttons make any real sense. He can only imagine what rudimentary wiring is affected underneath the panel’s face. Death by hyperspace doesn’t suit them.

“Ren,” Hux looms close. “Look at me,” his voice calm, above a whisper.

The hands pawing Ren’s ears melt against the skin of his cheeks. His vision sharpens on the object before him. Pale green eyes, red hair haloed by whirling starlight. Blinking blearily, Ren’s chest eases. A gradual transition from agony to tolerable discomfort, one breath at a time.

“Focus,” Hux tells him, cradling his jaw. “In and out of your nose.”

Nostrils flaring, Ren leans into his hands. His chest stutters around his more calming breaths.

“That's it. In and out,” Hux encourages. Ren’s breathing is near normal but he hasn't broken eye contact. Imploring into Hux’s levelness.

The control panel hisses and something snaps violent and sharp. It might have been a spark. “Ren, this damned ship is going to explode.”

He's lost to the melody of Hux’s reprimand, chest succumbing to an entirely different type of tremble.

“Ren,” Hux repeats. His hands remain anchored around Ren's face until he shows he's sobered.

Ren’s bottom lip wobbles. “It's not gonna explode.”

Satisfied, Hux drops his hands, fingers skating down Ren’s cheekbones. “Back in reality?”

The panel beeps and the recycled air tangs with electric smoke. Ren stands, their chests a hand's breadth apart. Eying the small lining of gold hair Hux missed while shaving, fuzz fine in the cleft in his chin. Pointedly, those green eyes focus past Ren’s shoulder. “Thank you,” Ren murmurs, slinking away. “I’ll find some tools.”

Hux stares at the breath of Ren’s back as he retreats deep into the vessel, unable to quell the wild thudding of his heart. Shaking off the encounter, Hux rights himself, desperately trying to understand Ren’s actions. Unfortunately he’s unable to discern them, as well as why he even cares to consider Ren’s thoughts and feelings in the first place.

 

 

 


	18. Chapter 18

Marin stands outside the door to the Resistance cruiser’s control center, staring at the stars through the viewport. The bruise on his cheek stings and the split on his head throbs but he doesn’t heal them. Grandmother begged him to have it looked at but he lied and told her he was taking care of it.

He thought he could fix everything but it only ended in terrible loss. He’ll keep the bruises for a little while. They remind him of failure.

A small purr snaps him out of his tumultuous reflection.

He looks up, and up and up at Chewie’s height. He feels incredibly small before the expanse of space but at Chewie’s feet he’s absolutely microscopic.

If only there was a way to communicate with Chewie, to tell him he’s so sorry for releasing Kylo Ren. Rey told him that Chewie and Han Solo were best friends, and Kylo Ren took his life under the influence of the dark side. Marin had touched the dark side today. Chewie probably knows. Finn said a Wookiee with an angry heart can tear your arms off.

Chewie moves to get something out of his pack and Marin flinches, backing against the transparisteel viewport with a mute clunk.

Lolling his head, Chewie murmurs a weary grr. He pulls out Marin’s spitter. Somehow Marin must have dropped it. Chewie holds it out, gesturing that he might need it.

Relief floods him. “Thank you,” he breathes, curling his fingers around his treasured weapon.

A furry hand pats his head. The sting of Marin’s bruised cheek is unfelt when he splits into a watery grin. He reaches out to the Force, and begins to heal.

 

\--

 

Having removed the main plate of the damaged control panel, Ren fiddles with the scored, shorted wiring underneath. A few of the cables can be replaced to stabilize the electrical output.

Hux slumps in the pilot’s chair to give him some room. Ren’s digging in the dilapidated Resistance vessel as natural as anything, and it unnerves him to no end. Daydreams threaten him—of Ren defecting onto the side of the Jedi, of General Organa working with Ren to defeat Hux’s empire. His presently nonexistent empire where Ren and he are on opposing sides. The fantasy sickens him.

“I know you hate it when I read your mind, but that was just ridiculous,” Ren mumbles, arched over the control panel.

Perhaps there are some advantages to Ren’s invasions. He never has to guess on whether or not Ren can read all his most embarrassing tangents, sucking them up like the cleaning appendage on a housekeeping droid—because Ren always tells him whenever he’s done so. “Are you running away from them because you fear they’ll turn you?”

At Hux’s odd question, Ren side-eyes his careless recline. “They were incapable of brainwashing me from the beginning.”

“What about him?” Hux asks with little inflection after a few minutes of silence, though it’s obvious he means Marin.

Ren doesn’t know if he means Marin could be turned, or Marin could be capable of turning him. In his internal debate Ren’s hands falter on a circuit, zapping him with its uninsulated spikes. “Shit,” he curses, shaking the numbness from his fingertips.

He probably electrocuted himself as a diversion. Typical Ren. “How long until we reach Snoke?”

“About four hours.” Ren pauses, eyeing Hux over his shoulder. “I’m dropping you off somewhere. Snoke wants you dead. It isn’t safe.”

There he goes again with his ‘protection’ nonsense. “Don’t pretend you give a shit about me,” Hux snaps. “And don’t you dare try to get rid of me. Not like how you did to him.”

“There is no way I’m letting you—”

“Enough! Stop trying to control me. I’m not your charge. I’m going with you.”

Fuming, Ren attempts to refocus on his work. He doesn’t trust Hux in anyone’s hands but his own. He found the shelf of rebreathers for the toxic atmosphere and there are enough for the both of them, but if Hux is staying then he’s staying on the ship. He’s confident that Hux won’t escape with it. This ship is difficult to fly under untrained hands.

The pilot’s chair squeaks at Hux’s change in balance. “What if he kills you?”

Ren grimaces. “Impossible.”

“Probable,” Hux counters. “He’s obviously trapping you.” Snoke’s a snake, a user and a liar.

“I won’t be long. I’m only looking for answers.” The Resistance would definitely be able to track them down, but Snoke’s gaseous planet is far closer to First Order airspace than that of the Resistance. They’ve got a head start. With any hope, the Resistance will make a foolish move on the ground and Snoke will tell him what to do next, when they’re cornered like mice. Snoke always tells him what to do next.

Something cold swallows Hux’s heart. “There has to be a better way to go about confronting Snoke.”

A tool clatters to the steel floor. Ren spins around, panel forgotten. “Not long ago, you were begging me to go after him. Must you constantly disagree with everything I say?”

Determined not to waver under Ren’s scrutiny, Hux answers honestly. “That was before.”

“Before what? Before _him?”_ Ren snarls, red and angry. He’s not angry at Hux. He’s just angry. Disgusting, culpable, misdirected anger. He brings up the boy because he wants to be hated. Any emotional blowback is preferable to indifference.

“Before I realized how truly weak and stupid you are,” Hux spits, not bothering to move from his chair. “Twisted by your fears and recklessness. He’ll probably kill you before we even land.”

Enraged, lungs tickling ominously, Ren paces around the cockpit. “I have no choice but to confront him. It’s impossible for you to understand.”

“Enlighten me,” Hux glares from the chair.

“I have to ask him why,” Ren boils, bubbling over the edge.

Sardonic, Hux raises his brow.

“Why, after everything I’ve done for him, do I feel weaker and more disconnected from the Force than ever before?” Ren continues. “Why he punished me, trapped me in my mind and led us to capture. I have to know why he ordered us to make a child in the first place, why he had me kill—” Ren’s throat swells shut. He claws at his hair, raking over the wild, treacherous conclusion.

He must know why Snoke told him to take Hux and forcibly impregnate him all those years ago, only to tear the baby from his hands. Why Snoke said the baby was meant to be his apprentice raised by both him and Hux—only to change his objective, lying and telling him that he was to raise the child himself in the ways of the dark side, when in fact he left the boy alone and vulnerable to be manipulated by the Jedi.

Why Snoke convinced him that striking down Han Solo would be his greatest achievement, the final step in mastering the power of the dark side, when it only weakened him to the point of breaking.

“Because he’s used you,” Hux informs him. It’s true, and right now the truth is his only ally. “He hates you.”

The weight is too much. Ren sinks to his knees. “That can’t be.” He physically can’t accept it, the implications of his master’s betrayal too heavy to bear. His chest tightens, but before he can devolve into coughing spasms Hux is there, palms on his temples.

“Breathe, dammit,” Hux instructs. “What the hell happened to you that made you so flimsy in times of stress?”

The cockpit rings with the bark of Ren’s painful laughter. “You,” Ren admits.

Hux narrows his eyes, uncomprehending.

“Snoke’s moon is toxic. I’ve always needed a rebreather to step foot on it. It was right after Starkiller, after I refused to follow orders to execute you. When I let you go,” Ren’s shoulder’s sag under the burden of his confession. “Snoke knew what I had done. He punished me by suffocating me in the toxin that sustains him and there was nothing I could do but take it.” Ren slips his eyes shut, skin buzzing under Hux’s frozen touch. “I guess there were lasting effects. But I don’t care. I would have taken any punishment.” He has, and he will. Whatever it takes to keep Hux safe.

Hux has no idea what to say, what to think, how to feel. He doesn’t remove his hands.

“Which is why Snoke can’t hate me. If he does, than this has all been for nothing.” All of it, nothing.

 _I hurt you for nothing. I killed Solo for nothing_ , Ren passes the confession. His most tormenting fears transmitted to Hux through mental projection.

Even secure in the pilot’s chair, Hux wavers under the furor of Ren’s confession. He doesn’t know what to think—so he doesn’t. He reacts and pulls Ren close to bend their foreheads together.

The effects are immediate. Flashes bombard his vision—moments of peace on a lakeshore.

_Marin studying the texts of the first Empire under the glow of light in a warm cave, the boy absorbing paper books like a magnet. His son’s torrent of questions, lively debate over politics and strategy, history and science. Hux laying a little kiss on the boy’s wild dirty-blond hair because he can, because he’s his._

_Ren holding him as he made love to him under the swirl of stars, tentative touches to his abdomen where his scar from the pregnancy stripes low and bowing. Then the next day, his anger and heartbreak he felt towards Ren when he hurt Marin by launching the lightsaber that meant the world to him into the lake. Marin finding that he could forgive his father the next day, the split of Ren’s goofy grin as their search for the lightsaber devolves to horseplay and ruckus. The inside of a cave where he and Marin cut up vegetables, Ren’s arms enveloping him from behind, fingers gliding along the scar on his abdomen._

He buckles under Ren’s blinding fear when he lays eyes on the lightsaber that Marin said he’d found. Clenching around the visceral scorch of getting cleaved in two by Ren’s wild, psychotic fit.

Hux’s fingertips bruise Ren’s scalp. A gush of tears leak down Ren’s face, his all-consuming sorrow and rage, directed solely inward. Ren blames himself. For everything.

“It can’t have all been for nothing. I can’t be this alone for nothing, Hux,” Ren breathes, relishing the contact.

Ren wanted them to be together. He saw it, he knew it even before. But a lifetime of manipulation from that wretched Snoke has twisted him, lead him to believe their son would be their downfall. It’s a lie, impossibility. Hux knows his son. Marin is a beacon of loyalty and light. As much as he was reluctant to admit it, Marin had looked up to Ren his whole life. Maybe there’s a chance that Ren can want to recreate that dream of peace at a lakeshore. Maybe, there’s still a chance that they can be together.

Hux also knows Ren. His misplaced trust, his arrogance. His guilt and his vulnerability, and his unwavering passion. He knows how in the final years of their partnership, Ren would brush him off like a guileless pest. Ren’s indifference has always maddened him. And now Ren claims to have hurt him for his own good, tore his baby from his hands because he cares for him. It’s true because Ren believes it, and he knows that like him, Ren’s stubbornness is as impenetrable as durasteel.

But durasteel can be malleated, warped like a susceptible heart. Because Hux knows how Ren feels against him, his mouth and his tongue and his body. He knows how Ren feels inside of him, in the most vulnerable, drowned depths of his soul. Ren, by virtue of simply being, weakens Hux’s carefully crafted walls until his hidden, forbidden longing blossoms through the cracks, weakening the bricks until it crumbles into rubble.

Hux, the masochist, thumbs the bruises on the left side of Ren’s miserable face, chest fluttering at Ren’s fragile reactions to the intimate contact. “You’re not alone,” Hux’s voice cracks.

Ren’s nostrils bulge, jaw protesting under Hux’s assurance. How can he say that? How can Hux—General _fucking_ Hux—possibly extend anything resembling forgiveness to someone like him? “I’m sorry for hurting you. I-I don’t know what’s real anymore. I don’t think I’ve ever been sure,” Ren murmurs. “Do you understand why I did it? Why I left him? We had to go. It wasn’t safe there for either of us. Please tell me that you understand. I need to hear it.”

Hux blinks from one dewy hazel eye to the other. Ren’s made himself clear. Ren broke his heart to save his skin in some kind of backwards, misguided, feral fear of his sins and calamity of his past scourging his future. But he won’t give Ren the satisfaction, the closure of knowing Hux understands. Whether it’s out of pettiness, scornfulness, Hux doesn’t know. Perhaps it’s something to keep him guessing. Or something to keep him from leaving.

Hux’s gut twists, his masochistic tendencies resurfacing. He takes an irreversible leap.

Hand anchored in Ren’s tangled hair he closes the distance between them, hot, wet, and slack jawed against Ren’s lips. A groan bubbles from low in his throat. He surrenders to the realization that he’ll never settle for any kiss with Ren to be their last, fate sealed just like the deathswitch connecting their hearts. Gently, he pulls away, drunk from the contact.

Ren grimaces. He brings a hand to cradle the base of Hux’s skull, grounded. “What was that for?” Everything aches.

“It was nothing,” Hux replies tonelessly.

The words are callous, but that’s not what they mean. Regardless, Ren’s hooked, his body crying for Hux’s gravitational pull. “I want to do right by you. For once.”

He’s thinking only of himself when he pulls Ren by his ears to kiss him with a poisonous tongue. He whimpers into his mouth, all thoughts dazed and jumbled. Hux pulls away, thumbing past the wet crease of Ren’s lips.

Undoubtedly, Hux will want to explain, condemn, to write off his actions to some judge, as if he’s on trial for every one of his actions. “We don’t have to talk about it,” Ren assures him. “About anyone else, not any of it. It’s just us here. We don’t have to talk about any of it,” Ren babbles, leaning forward for more tonging kisses and looming in the vee of Hux’s thighs. Desperate for a diversion, scrabbling for more selfish contact. A reciprocal plight. Mutually assured destruction.

Hux moans when Ren tackles the sensitive spots under his jaw and throat. “I don’t think you understand,” he gasps around Ren’s ministrations, “what’s about to happen once we pull out of hyperspace,” Hux informs him, lust clouded eyes slipping shut.

“Stop doing that,” Ren murmurs into his ear. “It doesn’t have to make sense. It doesn’t have to be explained.” Hux’s hair is softer than he remembers, so impossibly delicate and warm. He could weep.

“Somebody has to.”

On cue, Ren’s vision blurs with tears. Hux is right—anything could happen once they get to their destination. So he does all he can do, poking his nose in Hux’s softness. Breathing him in and out, focusing all his attention on the infinitely infinitesimal moment.

Somehow Hux’s arms find their way around Ren’s shoulders. Embracing, guarding, bearing in every sense of the word. Ren’s heaving breaths against his ear shake loose several coveted sweat-matted, slippery-sweet memories.

Before Ren, Hux has never been inclined to give into his body’s carnal desires. Originally he’d attributed his thirst for Ren with the naivety of his youth and the sickness of the sun during their exile together shortly after their son’s conception, bleaching his reasoning and rationality. Now, he’s not so sure, for his hunger blooms deep inside. Emanating from a delicate, puckered, untouched place.

Hux closes his eyes, envisioning Ren’s intimate dream. Sensations of heat, hardness, fullness. Ren over him, making love to him as he holds on for the ride. The fantasies are projected before he realizes what he’s done.

“Fuck,” Ren hisses in his ear. Two hands palm his thighs, maddeningly tender. “I’d do anything—” Ren trembles, strangled by the years of pent up desire.

It isn’t the right time. There’s so much happening, so much _wrong_ , but Hux doesn’t care. “I want to,” Hux chokes out, trying to crane Ren enough to look him in the eyes. Ren yields, breathing heavy and full in contrast to his previous wheezing rattles. He bumps their noses together, petting Ren’s scalp. “I want to have you like we did in your vision.”

Ren’s throat bobs as he takes in Hux’s openness, his earnest plea to mirror his own. Ren spent a better part of the last decade of his life longing for Hux in every possible, human way. And somehow, after everything, their semblance of a relationship well past the end of the road, Hux still wants him.

The air around them moves when Ren launches Hux up by his bottom, gripping him tight. Instinctually, Hux squeezes his legs around Ren’s middle like a tree climber. Palming the roped muscles of Ren’s shoulders under his wrinkled shirt, letting himself get carried.

Ren inhales the juncture of Hux’s neck, nose digging into the fluttering pulse point. What goldenness that shines in Ren’s heart at Hux’s weight in his arms, dulls by the reminder of their destination, the uncertainty that lines their paths. But together, they manage to push the dread away in favor of reclaiming each other’s mouths. This is them, the present. In a bubble where they’ve never done anything wrong, where nothing is of consequence. Caressing and swaying in each other’s arms freely like newlyweds, as if their souls aren’t crying for repair.

“Shut up,” Hux suggests, though Ren had said nothing. Regardless, Ren takes the advice and deposits him on one of the ship’s bunks.

Ren peels off his wrinkled shirt, shucking it on the floor. “Wait here,” he instructs, punctuating with two palms to Hux’s spread knees.

He disappears past the living space, Hux’s toes tipping together from his patient recline. Heartbeats ricochet in his ribcage at skitters and clanks of random objects from behind a barrier.

Ren returns with a small bottle. “Biosynth-oil. I think it’s for scar treatments,” Ren explains carefully, hoping Hux will fill in the blanks.

“I’ve only been with you,” Hux admits because he has to, and because he’s unable to make any sarcastic remarks. Because he’s truly never wanted anyone as much as he wants Ren right now. And he never will. A part of him wants Ren to know as much, that no one else has ever or will ever be allowed to touch him like Ren has permission to. Ren and his scar that whips from his shoulder to his face, the beauty marks dotting his abdomen like stars, his mounds of muscle flowing under his skin. He sits on his knees between Hux’s legs, setting the oil on the bunk.

Ren kisses him again. He needs to. Like all things in this universe, kisses are finite. He’ll take as many as he can. He tugs at Hux’s sweatshirt and kneads the newfound pale skin in his long fingers. Gliding over his abdomen, spanning like armor. With newfound aggression Ren sucks at Hux’s neck and chest, leaving an uneven blush in his wake. Hux fists his hair encouragingly, the sting summoning tears in Ren’s eyes.

Ren welcomes the pain. He brushes his fingertips along the fine scars mutilating the skin of his belly. “When were these?” he murmurs remorsefully.

“A gang of Resistance rebels looking for a little revenge while I was in my cell. Just last week.” He thinks of Marin, and in turn so does Ren. The boy’s quite special with his abilities if the degree of healing is any indication. He’s special in a lot of ways, in many ways he and Ren aren’t.

Ren drops kisses to the crosshatching scars, reveling in the quakes of the muscles there. They haven’t done this before, not in reality. From casual pornography viewing Ren had done as a young man he can only barely make sense of what the process for anal sex is. But Hux doesn’t seem to be terribly concerned. He shoves at Ren’s shoulders, as if in complete objection to his advances. Only to claw his hands in Ren’s hair, tongue at Ren’s neck.

Ren scoops the globes of Hux’s barely-there ass. As if the artificial gravity faltered, Ren topples backwards, bringing Hux along for the ride. His skull conks on the floor panels but doesn’t let Hux’s ass go.

“Shit,” Hux grins. He braces his fist on the floor next to Ren’s head. Ignoring the sting of his bruised knuckles. Ren’s jaw is in far worse condition, enflamed and blotchy, though Ren doesn’t look as if he recalls the incident. But it’s not that he forgot, or simply doesn’t care Hux drove his bare-knuckled fist into him like a battering ram. He’ll proudly wear Hux’s marks. Ren is a selfish creature, lustfully feeding off every one of Hux’s equal and opposite reactions.

However to Hux, Ren doesn’t look as if he can recall anything in that moment, light reflecting in his eyes. Full and twinkling, focused like crystals stabilizing a beam of limitless energy. Hux shudders under the scrutiny, straddle drooping so he can get a taste of Ren’s pectorals. Salt, smooth, and sharp against the pad of his tongue. “How should we do this?” Hux sits up, rubbing at the tightness of Ren’s chest in his hands.

“We could do it right here?” Ren proposes, punctuating with a squeeze to his thin hips.

“That’s a recipe for disaster,” Hux palms himself through his sweatpants.

He’s right. He doesn’t want to fuck up anyone’s knees. “We’ll squeeze on the bunk. I’m good at managing tight spaces,” Ren smirks. Hux scoffs, too titillated to form a proper reprimand.

Hux thinks of the vision. He was on his back, gaping at the tilt of the galaxy overhead. The warmth from the bonfire kissing the skin where Ren hadn’t covered. Deliberately, Hux slips off his boots and sweatpants under Ren’s penetrating eye, completely bare and shameless. “Like this,” Hux beckons from his recline on the bunk. Knees slack and parted, gaze wide and dark.

Cursing under his breath, Ren unhooks the belt. Vader’s lightsaber clatters to the flooring. Ren kicks of the skintight boots and pants, Hux his enthusiastic audience to his hasty stripping.

There’s hardly enough room for one of them but Ren makes it work, folding Hux’s limbs to the side, arranging him like a doll. He cracks open the biosynth-oil with his teeth to dribble some in his palm. He moans along with Hux when his hand gives Hux’s flushed cock a succinct tug.

Hux forces his eyes to remain open. He doesn’t want to lose a minute of this—Ren hot and hard between his thighs, the might of his grip on his cock unlike any pressure he’s felt in ages.

With no regard for cleanliness Ren dribbles more oil on his hand, the sheen running down his forearm with its thin viscosity. There isn’t any room for Ren to bend low and take Hux in his mouth like he wants to, not like this in this bunk where they lie tangled and stuffed, the air around them hot and heady. So he uses his finger to fondle him gently and trace the hidden spot between Hux’s cheeks.

Biting his lip, Hux whimpers. Trembles and nods, hair flopped over his forehead. He’s ready.

Not wasting any more time, Ren sinks his finger deep. Pulling out and pushing back in to test the give of Hux’s impossibly tight warmth. He has no idea how his cock is gonna fit in him without hurting him. What if he doesn’t enjoy this at all? What if his careful ministrations bring Hux back to the time where Ren had forced a foreign object to hurt him from deep inside?

“Ren,” Hux swallows. “Don’t think about before, or after, or anything but now. Got it?”

Chin puckering, Ren nods.

Hux gapes, spine tingling when Ren bumps a confused patch inside. He can’t tell if it feels good. Until Ren adds another finger and his throat spasms around the intrusion. He sees stars.

“Can I add another?” Ren whines, mesmerized.

“Go easy,” Hux pants, widening his thighs. The next finger doesn’t feel right, the pressure widening and burning. Until Ren bumps that special bud and his eyes boggle. Understanding, Ren bumps it again, and again. He craves the tremble of Hux’s spread thighs.

“Should I do more?” he asks, feeling stupid. Unprepared.

But Hux shakes his head. “Show me what you got,” he croons, young and light and present. Alive.

Elbows protests around the cramped space of the bunk but Ren manages to withdraw all his fingers, and it burns but does little to discourage Hux’s anticipation. Back bowed under the overhead closure, Ren scoots forward and dribbles oil onto his cock. One of Hux’s legs bends down towards the floor to give Hux room to grab onto Ren’s cock, testing the mass. From the tip and to the center where it expands slightly more than anywhere else, as if Ren was able to work out some kind of muscle growth on it.

Ren groans, tugging on Hux to participate. “If at any point it’s too much, don’t be afraid to tell me,” Ren murmurs. He doesn’t want to fuck this up.

“I had my innards played with last week. I can handle a little burn,” he assures him. Ren scowls, his hatred for the Resistance ever-present. Even with a raging erection.

“Come on, Ren. Don’t make me beg,” he leers to Ren’s slicked up cock.

“Maybe I want you to beg,” he retorts. Because he’s insufferable.

Rough and impatient, Hux grapples Ren’s ears and tugs him forward to join their lips. Ren plasters himself to his chest, canting his hips into him. Teasing. Ren brushes his clean hand through the errant hairs tangled on his face, licking at Hux’s pink mouth. Something bubbles in his throat, deep and drowned. Undecipherable.

“Try relax,” Ren tells him, husky and low.

The initial breach nearly makes him shout into Hux’s tightly drawn face, his brow puckered and pensive, the flatness of his chest sticking and unsticking from Ren’s protruding muscles with every heaving breath. It takes all his resolve to not slam into Hux beneath him, his slight, pliant and willing body contorted to every angle. One leg folded to his chest and the other sticking out of the bunk, one hand on Ren’s shoulder and the other scrabbling at the wall behind his head.

Sliding in more only makes Hux clench tighter, his mouth contorting into a grimace. “Shut up,” Hux hisses, though Ren had said nothing.

“One blink means yes, two means no?” Ren huffs, grinning toothily. There’s a little vein pulsing at Hux’s temple that he hadn’t seen before.

Palming Ren’s bruised jaw, Hux reconnects their mouths, tonging deep until Ren finds he can sink even more inside Hux. Aching moments of kissing and sinking until Ren bottoms out, sitting up on his haunches to observe his handiwork.

Hux gapes, fingers trembling around the column of Ren’s neck. Impaled, anchored around Ren like a fitted glove. He’s never felt so much, so grounded. So real.

Taking the hint, Ren thrusts out and back in, slowly and steadily enough to gauge Hux’s reactions. He tugs Hux’s leg over his shoulder to get a better grip. Arching his back, Hux loses himself in the sensation of getting taken, rough and raw and filling. Stretched and split over Ren’s enormity. High, whiny moans escapes his throat with every one of Ren’s hard fucks. Agony. Blissful, perfect agony.

Ren collapses on him, Hux’s hip twisting around the new contortion. The angle blossoms more of those delicious electric sparks, his lolling cock plastered between their stomachs. He keens under Ren like a loose wire on the fritz. Ren groans, picking up speed.

Every nerve is on fire. Heart thudding wildly, Hux stretches his legs as wide as they’ll go around Ren. Hands clawing at Ren’s ass with blunt fingernails, moaning himself breathless. “Harder,” he begs, desire warping his voice into unrecognizability.

“Fuck, look at you,” Ren hisses in his ear. Promptly biting and fucking it with his tongue, filling his ear with sloppy, filthy noises. A gentle hand to Hux’s jaw cranes their noses together, Ren’s heady gaze peeking from behind the dark shroud of hair. “You’re everything,” he breathes. A vow sealed with a deep, blistering plunge into his gasping mouth.

Heart in his throat, Hux cradles Ren’s skull. He has no words for him, only more whines. It’s too good, too sharp, too much. Without warning he bucks violently, back bowing off the thin padding of the bunk. His orgasm emanates from deep inside where Ren’s buried, his body tightening into throes. Dutiful, Ren fucks him through it until he can feel the come slicking on their bellies.

Hux whines, oversensitive but determined to feel Ren come inside him. It doesn’t take Ren long to follow, hips faltering, eyes slipping closed, riding the shocks with Hux’s hands on his chest.

When the dust clears, Hux is the first to speak. “I’m sorry about your heart,” he murmurs, dazed with exhaustion.

Still seated inside him, Ren sits up from his heavy flop over Hux. They’re absolutely filthy—covered in sweat, oil, saliva, and come. Ren relishes the feeling, tucks it deep in a fold of his brain. “What do you mean?” he asks, for Hux’s comment could mean a great number of things.

“The time bomb.” Hux traces a finger in the divot between Ren’s pectorals.

“I know why you did it,” he replies. To Ren, the deathswitch is a redundant device. He was never shocked or stricken by Hux’s confession since he long ago decided he wouldn’t live long after Hux perished. At least he knows now that if they are separated again, as long as his heart still beats blood in his veins, Hux is alive. He feels like some witless character out of a cheesy novel about bravery and sentiment, selfless and honorable. Though any character would be better than himself.

Hux thumbs Ren’s haired chin, his early-onset frown lines. “It’s a gross violation. I thought you’d be angry.” Ren’s indifference maddens him.

But what Hux doesn’t know is that indifference is the farthest feeling in Ren’s heart. Ren says nothing, just delivers small, noiseless kisses to Hux’s flat chest.

“How long do we have?” Hux pushes out, dreading the answer.

“This ship travels faster than light speed. So very not long at all,” Ren informs him, mouthing at Hux’s neck.

Hux scoffs. “Lucky us—are you getting hard again?” His eyes boggle in awestruck delight.

Ren replies with a grinning kiss to his lips, praying that they can make the present last forever.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THEY. DID. THAT. HAHA
> 
> i hope you guys enjoyed this chapter!!! i will warn y'all that i'm going to hawaii for my sister's wedding for a little over a week so the next chapter will be posted when i return! thanks for reading my hennies :v)


	19. Chapter 19

 

 _“General Organa,”_ Poe urges over his comm. _“The Falcon’s dropped out of hyperspace and is orbiting a remote gaseous planet in the Cerune system. Just on the lower most rim of First Order territory. Our data shows there’s nothing there, except for rock formations. Uninhabitable. Composed primarily of chondrites—not of any mining value.”_

The general breaks the threshold of the communications room, greeted by her flustered commander. Poe drops his hand from his comm now that they’re face to face.

“Allow me to form a team to go after them,” Poe implores. They’re so close to ending this war. The First Order would be irreparably weakened without their masked enforcer. If only Kylo Ren and his irritating partner weren’t so damned slippery.

“Take your team and leave immediately.  Our cruiser will be right behind you.” General Organa doesn’t want to waste a single second deliberating when this could be their last chance at bringing Ben home. Her desperation knows no end, but she knows if Ben truly wanted to come home he’d have done so on his own. Before Marin, before Han. Ben squandered both opportunities, and he’d done so of his own freewill.

Poe marches to his fleet. “I want us out of here in ten minutes! Perform diagnostics. BB-8, quit flirting and roll this way, pal. Let’s get to work!”

Marin watches Commander Poe Dameron shout to his other pilots from the perch of a small hall window facing down at the docking bay. It’s Finn and Rey’s tandem jog that pulls his attention from the port. “What’s happened?” he gasps, fisting his spitter.

“We’re tracked them down and we’re heading for them right now. They went to some secret base. We don’t have a lot of time,” Finn explains. 

R2-D2 whistles behind them, eager to join on the adventure.

Marin desperately wants to make this right. “I need to come with you.” He already knows they will deny him but he’s already broken so many rules. But maybe, just this time, he won’t be left behind again.

“That’s just not possible,” Rey tells him, soul aching. “It’s too dangerous. We’ll bring them back. I promise.”

He doesn’t think Rey could keep that promise. Kylo Ren is much more powerful and capable than he could have ever imagined. Already knowing what he has to do, Marin stalks off into the opposite direction, hand tight around his spitter.

“You know he’s gonna try and come with us, right?” Finn mumbles to his partner.

“I’m dreading leaving him behind again. It disgusts me,” Rey grates, prepared to make yet another sacrifice for the greater good.

 

\--

 

Ren’s hand pries open another compartment, a hidden armory from another era. The drawer, thin and tall, trundles noisily to the side, revealing a small selection of blaster rifles. He picks out a powerful hand blaster, one similar to the type he’s seen Hux fire in battle simulations. Its handle is worn, used, imprinted over time by its original owner.

Outside the viewport twists several sets of celestial bodies—moons, mostly grey—around the large, green-grey stormy planet, thinned to a sliver under the eclipse of the planet’s sun. Hux studies the swirl of the planet, a storm collecting into a cyclone of gasses in the lower hemisphere. His intuition tells him this place is a source of darkness.

“It’s not intuition,” Ren corrects, joining him in the cockpit.

Hux doesn’t care what it is. The Force isn’t his ally. “You don’t have to meet with him now. We’ve waited this long. We can wait a little longer.”

“Stop that,” Ren says neutrally, hovering around Hux in the pilot’s chair.

“Stop what? Being reasonable?”

“Stop trying to make me never want to leave your side ever again,” Ren replies mournfully. “You should have let me deposit you somewhere safe.”

Hux scoffs, warming against Ren’s honorable argument. “If you’re so concerned, tell him about the deathswitch.”

He just might. Snoke wouldn’t risk Ren’s life like that. “Get up, unless you know how to fly this ship.”

Hux feels weak to his bones, heavy under the pressure of their impending doom. “You’re not thinking straight. He’s going to kill you.”

“I’m the only ally he has left. It would be foolish to kill me now,” Ren says, confident.

Arrogant, so incredibly arrogant. Hux stands, spine twinging low reminding him of how Ren had fucked him, thoroughly and rigorously. They went at it in the bunk, then against the wall—Ren holding him up by the undersides of his knees, and again with him bent over the bunk on his chest. Ren had sucked him off once after that, fucking him with his fingers. Then Ren finished himself inside of him, deep and final. Hux wasn’t able to get all of Ren’s come from inside of him, although he wasn’t entirely motivated to wash away the evidence from their time together. He doesn’t feel different, he only feels _more_. Enriched. He craves Ren’s mark. He craves whatever Ren can give him.

Which is why Ren can’t willingly walk into hellfire. Their story cannot end right at the beginning.

Ren hands him a blaster, face taut and pensive. “I’m going to make a landing but you need to stay here. I’ll turn the deflector shields on. Just in case.”

Reluctantly, Hux moves to the other chair.

“See that lever?” Ren asks once situated in the pilot’s chair, hands on the controls. He won’t be able to get going without a copilot.

Hux grimaces. “Where?”

“That one, next to the four tabs.”

“What about it?” Hux doesn’t want to cooperate. He doesn’t want to be here, flying into the lion’s den.

Ren’s lip twitches, frustration spiking. “Flip it so I can start the sublights.”

Complying, Hux flips the switch.

“And the two tabs over. Press them.” When Hux doesn’t comprehend, Ren clarifies. “The red ones. With the bumps on them.”

Sighing, Hux presses the tabs. He doesn’t understand the undeveloped functionality of the design. Controls strewn apart. It doesn’t make sense.

“It’s for two people,” Ren explains, rumbling low. “There are supposed to be two pilots. The circuitry is spread for maximum electrical efficiency.”

Hux doesn’t reply. He sits back, bracing for their decent.

Ren lands the Falcon on a barren strip, hours away from Snoke’s lair on foot. As if the distance could somehow spare Hux of any misfortunate encounters with Snoke. He activates the shields, powering down the engine. He’s very still, staring ahead through the transparisteel at the path he plans on covering.

“Ren,” Hux implores. “Can’t we just leave?” Hux doesn’t recognize his voice, anemic and irresolute.

There’s nowhere to go. Their failures have caught up to them. Ren stands, stalking to the direction of the boarding ramp. He begins to activate the temporary airlock when Hux stops him with a hand on his wrist.

“You don’t have to do this,” Hux hisses. This is suicide. Can’t Ren see?

Ren eyes him knowingly, sagging with guilt.

“You bastard,” Hux breathes in realization. “Are you this desperate to get away from it all? From Marin? From me?”

Ren sweeps him close. Chest to chest, his hands palming Hux’s narrow waist. Begging a heated, desperate kiss to Hux’s grimace, Ren closes his eyes. Sunbathing in Hux’s warmth. “You know that’s not true. I’m coming right back,” Ren murmurs, lips brushing Hux’s with every word for emphasis. Punctuating with another deep kiss, memorizing the softness of Hux’s lips that are so often tugged into a hard set line.

Hux pulls away, gripping Ren’s shirt so he can’t escape. He’s forever tethered in Ren’s orbit. “Then stop kissing me like that.”

“Like what?” Ren leans in but Hux ducks away.

“Like you’re never going to see me again,” Hux accuses.

Brow puckering, Ren takes one more kiss to carry with him for his long walk.

Hux licks his lips, chest bubbling—a side effect of being trapped in the confines of Ren’s arms. “You’re so fucking dramatic.”

Bringing a thumb to the swell of Hux’s bottom lip, Ren smiles. Open, honest. “That’s why you love me,” Ren tells him from the rawest, most untainted part of his heart.

That’s the last thing Hux hears before a familiar penetration of blackness engulfs him.

Typical Ren.

 

\--

 

Marin eyes the guards around him, posted at each doorway in the control room. Grandmother told him the safest spot in the ship is right next to her, in the hub of Resistance deliberation. He feels so terrible about what he has to do again. Lying. Deceiving. His tricks are impressive and they just might impress Kylo Ren if he ever gets to show him. But after what happened, what Kylo Ren did, he’s not quite sure impressing his father is a good thing.

He’s always had a loose concept of good, anyway. Maybe he could touch the dark again, influence a pilot into following the Millennium Falcon.

“Grandmother,” Marin interrupts, getting her attention.

General Organa turns away from her monitor. “What is it?” she regards calmly. Marin has a lot on his mind, she’s sure.

“Could maybe someone take me back to D’Qar? I feel a little ill. I think it’s the ship,” he lies.

Narrowing her eyes imperceptibly, the general skims the surface of Marin’s mind for any signs of deceit. Since the incident and the few other times Marin had gotten one over on them, she’s forced to err on the side of caution. All she senses is a lost, sorrowful beacon of light. Guilt stings for having doubted him in the first place.

Perhaps if Marin is back planetside, he’ll be safer. On base, babysat by Threepio. “We’ll have Chewie take you back. Is that alright?”

Something sad flashes through the boy’s eyes. “That’s fine. I hope he doesn’t mind.”

Marin had only just gotten Chewie to talk to him, in his own growly way. He doesn’t want to hurt Chewie. But he must carry through with his plan, if not for himself but to reassure that the Jedi won’t put Hux in harm’s way. And Kylo Ren, too, but Kylo Ren isn’t like Marin and Hux. They don’t have telekinetic powers or muscle to rely on. Maybe one day he’ll learn how to harness the Force in that way, but today he has to work with what he’s got.

He hugs his grandmother, tight and warm. “I’m so sorry for everything,” he whimpers. He means it. For what he’s done, and what he’s about to do.

“Marin, you’re an incredibly brave, special boy.” She attributes his surge of guilt to how he blames himself for losing their prisoners.

Pulling back, Marin looks up at his grandmother. “Thank you for everything,” he smiles, watery and small. If he can get to Hux, this will be the last time they ever see each other.

Oblivious to Marin’s plan, General Organa flags down Chewie. “I’ll need you to take our boy back to D’Qar.”

Gurgling in agreement, Chewie gestures for Marin to follow him to the docking bay. Sparing one last smile at his grandmother, Marin trails behind Chewie, hand on his spitter.

Chewie eyes him between his furry lashes, catching him in the middle of ogling the fleet that’s nearly ready to take off. The boy hinders on the transport Rey, Finn, Luke, and R2 pile onto. Poe Dameron gets his own single seated Starfighter. What if Chewie doesn’t have the coordinates he needs in his head?

Right before Chewie approaches their own transport, he stops in his tracks. Clumsily, Marin runs into him, bruised cheek tickled by his carpeted leg. “Sorry,” he blurts.

Silently, Chewie pulls out his pack again, brandishing a small pouch. He hands it to Marin. Curious, Marin peers inside. Stones. Uncomprehending, Marin gapes up at Chewie’s impossible height.

Chewie nods, tugging on Marin’s other hand, the one with the spitter. He cocks his fuzzy head to the departing fleet.

Is Chewie saying what he thinks he’s saying? “But how will I escape unnoticed?”

One of Chewie’s digits press against Marin’s forehead. It’s then that Marin understands.

Focusing his energy outward, Marin bends away from the beckon of the darkness like a beam of light bouncing off a lake surface. Last time Luke could sense his darkness, which was what gave him away. He needs to come up with a way off this ship and follow Poe Dameron and the Jedi, before they leave for good.

In his Grandmother’s mind, he projects the image of himself following along with Chewie into the transport. With a parting nod to Chewie, who needs no such illusion, he scuffles through the docking bay. He only has a moment to think, so he clamors into the back seat of Poe Dameron’s ship, using his mind tricks to make him invisible and soundless. Poe doesn’t appear to see or sense him as he secures his seat belt.

Poe’s little droid beeps confusedly. Marin pales, trying so hard to use his powers to make Poe ignore his receptive droid. The darkness is more accessible. He can’t help but tug along its oily tendril.

“What?” Poe squawks to BB-8. “There’s no one else here, buddy. We gotta get going. They’re counting on us to stop the fugitives.”

The droid beeps, making various readings show up on the control panel. The screen shows two lifeforms in the ship, but Marin uses his dark side trick to make Poe see just his one. “BB-8, it’s just me in here. We don’t have time for this.” BB-8 complies with his master’s instructions, humming in resignation.

Exhaling, Marin braces himself against the cramped backseat as they make the jump to hyperspace.

 

\--

 

Kylo Ren double checks the diagnostics on his rebreather before abandoning the Falcon, boots crunching against the rocky moonscape. The sky glows green with the crystallizing clouds. He really wishes he had time to acquire a jacket.

He uses this opportunity to use the communication unit that the Resistance will no doubt be monitoring, as the comm is their own, but he doesn’t have another choice. The Jedi are already on their way and when Snoke senses they’re here, he might not feel so arrogant about Snoke needing him alive. Scowling through the duraglass of the rebreather, Ren programs the transmission to the Finalizer.

Ren brings the commlink to his face. “This is Kylo Ren. I need to speak with the superior officer.”

_“Access code?”_

Ren riddles off the code—the most exclusive and urgent one he can remember.

 _“Hold for redirect,”_ garbles the operator.

It takes several footfalls for Ren to hear back from the ship.

 _“Happy to hear you’re still alive, Ren,”_ chides Phasma, cocksure. _“Have you completed your end of the bargain?”_

“Almost,” he tells her, careful to hide the details of their agreement—bringing Phasma Snoke’s head. “You’ll get what you want,” he lies. “I just need to ask one thing.”

A pause. _“I’m listening.”_

“I activated a beacon to my location. The Resistance is already on their way. You must get here before they do. Hux is aboard a freighter parked past a salt flat—it’s where the beacon emanates. You have to get him to safety.”

 _“Done,”_ she says, without a moment’s thought.

“If you don’t, I’ll know. I’ll come for you, and it’ll take more than an army to stop me,” he threatens.

_“I trust you’ll carry through with that. You have my word no harm will come to him.”_

“You have less than four hours to get here. The Resistance will stop at nothing to take him prisoner.”

 _“Understood,”_ she snaps impatiently. _“I suggest you use some of that drive to complete your end of our agreement. We’ll be there in time. Will you need rescuing as well?”_

Ren’s chin tightens. He cuts the comm off, clipping it to his belt next to Vader’s lightsaber.

He finally stumbles on the footfall beaten path of his footprints from past visits. The last time he’d spoken to Snoke in person, Ren had been punished for his disobedience in disobeying his master to save Hux. His lungs itch from the memory of Snoke suffocating him, thieving the blistering breath from his body. But he’d do it again, again, and again, take every punishment, if it meant Hux would be safe.

The land under his boots vibrates with every step, doing very little to ease the tension rotting in his gut. He feels his master near. He follows along the narrow path of the trench until it forms its natural stone archway overhead.

Sharp rocks threaten to fall overhead, an illusion, amplified by the eerie quakes of the earth. Snoke is not in his usual pacing grounds. Ren follows the length of the tubelike cave, begging his breathing to get under control.

Ren lurches under a waft of a rhythmic shockwave, simultaneously foreign and familiar, ominous and beckoning. He thinks of the Force-inhibitor collar. This sensation is the polar opposite yet just as terrifying.

Like a moth to a flame, Ren’s feet carry him to the direction of the disturbance.

The cave ends at a pinprick of light.

His eyes squint to pained slits against the bleaching, white light of the end of the tubelike cave, the opening to another large, noiseless space. Adjusting to the strange diffusion of light, Ren stumbles along the uneven white stones that comprise the foundation of this place behind the trench. Blearily, he looks high above. The ceiling hangs high with white, seamless stone.

The only sounds are his laborious breathing trapped in the confines of his transparent mask. He steps farther away from the entrance to this glimmering place, deeper into the unknown.

Ren turns his head around, eying the vast distance separating the entrance to where his feet have taken him. His throat catches a surprised gasp when the land in front of him gives away to an incline, his hostile environment training preventing him from stumbling blindly into the pit.

He gapes at the landmark before him, a swirling pit of dust and clouds. A cyclone embedded in the earth, colorless and immense, stretching far and wide like the breadth of a star destroyer.

A cool hand cards its fingers through Ren’s hair, fingernails like blunt daggers digging lines through the congealing sweat and grime on his forehead, threatening to crack open the mask of his rebreather. Ren doesn’t move—all concern on the cyclone before him.

“What is this?” Ren asks, voice hoarse through the vocalizer of the rebreather.

His master leaves Ren’s question hanging in the air like a coil of smoke. “My project,” Snoke divulges, enigmatic and haughty.

The demands for answers, reasons, explanations, die on Ren’s tongue. Like muscle memory, Ren’s fire snuffs out, inert before his master. The daggers rake through the bed of his scalp, discomfort bordering pain. He feels like a dog, tears pricking on the verge of whining for some reprieve from the irritation.

“I learned with you,” Snoke continues, “that the mind of a child is incredibly precarious. One’s transformation must be organic. If not, you get this. Unpredictability through sloppy practices of manipulation.”

Snoke’s robed arm outstretches over Ren’s head, immense and alien, diffused light illuminating the faint hairs embedded in his knuckles. “Sidious and Vader—their bond as master and apprentice had gotten the job done for some time. Same as ours. But the influence of another can only push one so far, as it happened to Vader. He had the chance to access the full power of the dark side but fell victim to sentiment, because his love for his son was stronger than his love for power.” Snoke fondles Vader’s hilt strapped to Ren’s belt, Ren stock-still in his boots.

“Similarly, this has happened to you,” Snoke reprimands. “Your loyalty was synthetic. You followed only what you wanted to follow until you succumbed to sentiment.”

Ren’s eyes sting with stabs of acidic tears. This is it. This is where the road ends. He closes his eyes against the daggers that kiss his scalp.

“Your son,” Snoke begins again, “has already begun along the path of the dark side without any direct manipulation. His hatred for you is festering, natural. Authentic. He’ll train in the ways of the Jedi until his hatred becomes too much to bear. When he’ll be unable to come for you, he’ll go after those vermin Jedi who will tirelessly convince him of your loyalty. It’s only a matter of time before he’s done hearing their apologies on your behalf.”

Ren sinks to his haunches, limbs leaden and stiff. Tongue thickened speechless at his master’s confession.

“His powers—they’re different,” Snoke explains easily. Ren’s gaze never wavers from the hypnotic swirl in front of him. “Not powers of the flesh, the physical side of the Force that can so easily be parried by the Jedi. But internal. His connection with the Living Force of all things is unparalleled to even the greatest masters of the dark side. He’s capable of eating souls. Collapsing the most resilient minds at will, including you. And thanks to you, his powers have been awakened. I’ve never been more proud of you, my young apprentice.”

Pride. Snoke had told him he was proud of him only one other time—when he braved striking down Luke Skywalker’s horde of Jedi and cast Skywalker into hiding. The pride he basked in then feels slick and tacky now. He can only think of Marin’s scarred hand proudly brandishing Vader’s lightsaber. Of Hux’s fist colliding with his jaw, his sobs radiating through the Millennium Falcon’s crusted walls.

Ren’s throat finally summons the energy to speak. He cannot work through his master’s claims about the boy’s powers, fated for revenge and bloodlust. “You made this?” Ren stares out at the sea of grey dust. _Like you made me?_

One daggered fingernail bisects Ren’s skull, striping like a surgical scalpel. Any harder and it would break the skin. “It was a side project. A gateway to the untouched edges of the Force, harnessing energy with an array of focusing crystals. Redundant, because this exists to every end of the universe, within each of us. This is merely a useless incarnation of the Force’s power. There’s nothing extraordinary about it, at all.”

Ren sags heavily under Snoke’s explanation for his creation. “What do you use it for?”

“You need not concern yourself. It was merely a way to pass the time.”

“There has to be a reason.” On aching knees, Ren gets to his feet. Facing his master. Snoke’s got about a head of height on him. He falters against his master’s heady glare, grey eyes blistered around a diagonal, heinous scar. This is the first time he’d ever noticed it, as if he’s ignored it all this time. His salt-dusted fingertips brush his own near identical scar. It doesn’t disgust him. It grounds him.

Snoke’s face twists into a sickly, lopsided smile. “Why are you here?”

Scowling, Ren eyes his master. Snoke permitted Ren’s contact with him so he knows exactly why Ren would be so bold as to request a visit. “You trapped me in my mind. It led us to capture.”

Gnarled nose crinkling, Snoke’s projection of contempt makes Ren dither on his toes. “Us?” he parrots.

Stupid, stupid. Ren stretches thin before his master, laid as transparent as the mask supplying him with oxygen. “You can’t kill him. He’s infected me with a bounty hunter’s weapon. If his heart stops, so does—”Ren’s mouth snaps shut with the flick of Snoke’s hand. His front teeth clip off a tiny piece of the end of his tongue, blood stinging hotly in his sealed mouth.

“I suppose it wouldn’t matter if I were to kill you here and now, would it?” Snoke glowers, and then does something remarkably bizarre. He _laughs_ , a wiry, grating, shipwreck of a noise. “Worry not, my apprentice. I’ve grown indifferent for weak and malleable lifeforms like that Hux.”

Ren flinches as if Snoke had threatened him, but the relief cools what rage that had simmered. “But when I called for coordinates the first time, when Hux was with me—”

“I sent you where you needed to be sent!” Snoke bellows, voice echoing in the endless expanse of white. “Your judgement was clouded.”

“I was on my way to beg you for guidance to overtake Phasma’s army. And I've gotten nowhere near as able to defeat her. And neither have you,” Ren blurts, vigor concentrated on one final foe.

Snoke sneers, lips curling foully against his corpselike skin. “You must be patient,” he inflects cryptically.

“But she told me I could never return unless I brought her your head!” More waiting, more toying, manipulating—surely this can't be Snoke’s only play to retaking the First Order.

“You must be willing to sit by and watch the tree grow in order to bask in the fruits of your labor.”

“She's far too powerful for me to get past! I cannot defeat her army of millions—”

“She’s not yours to defeat, Kylo Ren!” Snoke snaps like a viper. “Your son—he is the one who can squeeze her mind and wrangle the troops she’s turned and conditioned to obey her. He is the one, Kylo Ren. The soul-eater. It all ends with him.” Succinct, Snoke turns on his heel.

Ren’s body reacts, fluid, as he fists Vader’s lightsaber. Activating the blue blade, its low hum loud and glaring in the wide expanse of the cave.

It won’t end with Marin.

It can’t.

His master halts in his retreat, cocking his massive head to the side. “It appears your judgement remains to be clouded.”

It's not. Ren’s never felt clearer in his life. Snoke’s plan from the beginning was to use him. Now the boy— _his son_ —is just another one of Snoke’s pawns. And Ren willingly allowed it to happen. “You’ve cast me into hell,” is all Ren can say under Snoke’s betrayal, throat thickened with tears of disbelief.

“The Force had shown you a path—the path you're so foolishly treading. Your vision was a peek into a future in which running away from everything we’ve worked so hard for together will leave you in ruins, weak beyond recovery. It wasn’t hell. It was a gift. And _this_ isn’t hell. It’s your destiny.” Snoke marches onward, as if his apprentice doesn't have a brandished lightsaber aimed at his back.

Ren’s throat bobs. “You had me kill him. I’m haunted every day by what you made me do.” Ren lays bare the confession for his stifled guilt on killing Solo, for the first time aloud. “I'm already weakened. And that's because of you!” Bold, careless, all concern for his wellbeing tossed aside.

“Your training will be complete when you shed your mindless vendettas. Unfortunately it’s taken more time than I'd ever anticipated. I can only swat your hand so many times.”

Seeing red, Ren staggers forward.

With a flick of Snoke’s hand, Ren is sent backwards to the pit, flat on his back, head hanging off the edge. A link of his spine protests as he attempts to get to his feet.

“You, like this pit, like the child, are one of my countless projects. You blame me for your weakness—but like this pit I'd given you choices. I had no bearing on the actions of how large the cyclone would grow, its color or speed in which it spins.”

Snoke steps over, a black smudge out of the corner of Ren’s eye.

“Each step was your own. Every surmounted failure is yours and yours alone. The child. Han Solo. You've done it all to yourself. There's not a being in this universe who'd understand why you'd done these things. Except me. You have no one, nothing but me.”

Snoke offers Ren a hand.

“Master and apprentice,” Snoke continues. “This bond is sacred. You must never allow yourself to break it.”

Ren thumbs off the lightsaber.

A hot surge of tears falls mournfully against his cheeks. He takes Snoke’s hand, using aid from his master to get to his feet. Ren stands with his back to his master, the daggers digging into the meat of his shoulder.

“Enough oversight, Kylo Ren. Soon, the time will come when you make the right decision.” His master’s hand tugs Ren backward, gentle, consoling, flat against the coarseness of his robe. “The child hates you, but that is temporary. Now that his powers have been awakened, once he gets a taste for his abilities and he realizes what you’ve done for him as I’ve done for you, he will graciously accept your loyalty. The time to move forward is now. He’ll join the Jedi, and he’ll end the Jedi. He’ll end Phasma and command her turned troops. It’s almost over. We’re almost there,” the voice in his ear promises, a bony arm embracing him in a gentle strangle. Graciously, Ren accepts the fatherly, manipulative contact, leaning back to the crook of his master’s arm.

Wet eyes trembling closed, Ren envisions a future that doesn’t end in bloodshed, where he’s free of the fear and the guilt and the hatred. A future by a lakeshore, evenings spent around a bonfire under the infinite scape of stars. Hux safe and smiling in his arms, their son asleep and at peace.

Vader’s lightsaber ignites, lancing through his own chest. His thumb spasms around the trigger, breath a dying wheeze. Heat. Numb, white, overpowering heat. The unkempt agonizing awe projected by his master tells him his dastardly last act had succeeded, that Snoke thrashes around the tip of the electric blue blade.

Snoke is as all lifeforms are. A victim of pride, confidence, oversight.

Flesh and blood. Mortal.

The daggers claw around Ren’s throat, puncturing his larynx, tearing at the rebreather and snapping it off his face. Squeezing his eyes against the poisonous atmosphere, Ren takes advantage of the leverage of Snoke’s claw around his throat. Angling the saber upward, Ren buckles his knees. Just before blackness encroaches him, he thrusts forward, sending the master and apprentice downward into the pit below.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes we are BACK for our regularly scheduled programming!! should be doing the weekly thing for now on.
> 
> here we have some of snoke's plan for Marin FINALLY, as well as new demonstrations of Marin's growing powers. 
> 
> and like i promised--kylo isn't dead, there is NO major character death for any of our beloved main chars!!! No MCD just drama and nods to return of the jedi! HAHA 
> 
> hope you guys liked this update!


	20. Chapter 20

 

 

Hux startles awake. He coughs, lungs reflating. The Resistance vessel rings with the echo of his throes.

Ren is gone.

He’d left him here, knocked him out blind. His stomach twists at the familiarity of Ren using his powers against him. Only this time it was to keep him safe. Again, he was overpowered by stronger men than he. The loss of agency is revolting.

Who’s going to look out for that selfish prick? It’s not like Ren actually expects him to wait around for him when the Resistance could track them down again.

“Shit,” Hux curses. This might be the most idiotic thing he’s ever done.

Strapping on one of the ship’s rebreathers, Hux breaches the airlock. The white sand glows under the haze of the sky, the swirl of the moon’s planet peeking through green clouds. Hux marches along the lone set of tracks—straight and narrow. The windless territory sets a deep chill into his bones.

Hux stays on the path.

 

\--

 

“When we make the drop out of hyperspace, there’s no telling what’s down there. We’re staying in our ships. We’re the eyes overhead, got it?” Poe tells his squadron over his comm. They bark in agreement, each voice coming through the speaker in his helmet

Cringing, Marin scours his mind for a strategy to get planetside. Tentatively, Marin brushes his mind with Poe’s. With deft concentration, Marin reaches towards Poe’s firelight life with his own. The difficulty of it is maddening. But adrenalized, he must persist. He can’t fail now, not when he’s made it this far.

The swirl of stars around Poe Dameron’s helmet solidifies into the familiar punctures of glowing light, an action is indicative of the Starfighter skidding out of hyperspace. Much like how the stars in the Millennium Falcon’s viewport had.

Now when he thinks of the Millennium Falcon, he thinks of it leaving him in the hangar. He uses his sorrow to push him into making the next step in his plan.

Tugging at Poe Dameron’s firelight, Marin sways his mind into working against his will. “Everyone, keep yourselves in orbit until I tell you the coast is clear,” are the words that Marin makes Poe form. Marin concentrates, trying to make Poe sound as convincing as possible.

 _“You sure about that, Poe?”_ someone in his speaker questions urgently.

“Positive,” Poe says, eyes blinking rapidly. There’s something fishy about this particular moment, his train of thought, his reasoning. But he can’t put his finger on it. He just knows he’s got to head down. Right?

 _“We should wait for the Jedi,”_ comes the voice. _“I mean this in the most respectful way, Poe, but are you crazy?”_ comes another. Marin doesn’t bother making Poe answer. He uses him like a puppet, guiding him to the moon which his Starfighter’s scanners show the Millennium Falcon sits on.

When Poe eases into complacency, his own will taking over as he entrusts his own judgement, Marin relinquishes his hold. It’s very sketchy work, mind controlling someone. He’s never done as much as this before, instead just turning people’s brains off like light switches to get what he wants.

Through the dome of the Starfighter, Marin ogles the familiar structure of the Millennium Falcon. He reaches with his senses but Hux isn’t aboard, and neither is Kylo Ren.

Oh stars! There Hux is, distant but there! He’s on this moon. A little ways away, but he’s here. Marin has got to find him. Kylo Ren was the one who didn’t want him, not Hux. All he needs is to be reunited with Hux again and it’ll all be okay.

Forcing himself into Poe’s mind Marin animates Poe’s piloting knowledge, flying them to the direction of Hux’s firelight. A few long minutes of zooming along the flatness of the moon, the terrain gives to rocks, uneven and daunting. Marin makes Poe stop as they approach a high plateau, two vertical cliff faces split in the middle. He feels Hux’s glow from between the cliffs. Its close enough he can make it on foot with plenty of time to spare. He doesn’t want Poe to take Hux back to the Resistance so he makes Poe stop right at the opening of the trench.

Marin’s too distracted by the comfort of Hux’s distant, miles-away presence that he completely misses how Poe Dameron secures on his intricate breathing apparatus. Poe unfastens the Starfighter’s dome, transferring all life support to the safety of his rebreather.

A loud, pained hacking uproars behind him and he whips around, gaping at the suffocating child. “What the hell?!”

 _“Poe, what is it?”_ urges a member of his squadron in his helmet.

Marin coughs, calling in his Force abilities to heal his burning throat, eyes, and lungs.

“BB-8, close the hatch!” Poe roars, scrambling for the manual switches.

But Marin’s already climbing out, his lungs adjusting to the ache of the new atmosphere. Never in all his life has his chest felt this raw, his eyes burning like hot stones about to fall out of their sockets. He calls to the Force for its power and the ache dulls to a manageable level. Poe Dameron is gonna tell the Jedi about his evasion from Grandmother and he can’t have that. He’s got to find Hux before they do.

Marin lands on his hands and knees, calling to the Force to aid his escape. With a burst of Marin’s energy Poe Dameron slumps over, unconscious, hanging out of the side of his Starfighter like a thrown doll. BB-8 beeps in confusion, calling for backup.

Scraping the stones from his knees, Marin sprints between the sky-high trench, mussing the layers of footprints embedded in the ground.

 

\--

 

Hux shields his eyes against the glow at the end of the long stretch of cavern. An inexplicable wave of energy vibrates his booted feet. Tiding over him, not good nor bad, not neutral. Unable to be attributed to anything he’s capable of emoting.

Breathing heavily from behind his transparent mask, Hux approaches the origin of feeling before him—a vast sea of dust expanding far beyond where his keen eyesight can discern. He wavers on his tired legs, knees popping.

A coarse chill ignites his heart, drowning all reason and rationalization. On the edge of the cliff sits Ren’s rebreather, blood splattered and scraped at by razors. He peers into the pit. No signs of Ren, nothing but dust.

Sinking to his knees, Hux picks up the rebreather. Running the pads of his fingers through the congealing blood. Hux breathes once, chest tightening.

If only the deathswitch would function in reverse. At least he’d be certain Ren had perished. Stupid, selfish Ren.

There’s one way to be certain. Hux gapes down at the dust, the rhythmic sandstorm. Maybe Ren is down there, crumpled in a heap of bones and blood. Hux can’t sense him—but he’d thought with all the unanswered questions he has with the Force that it would have at least show him some indication that Ren had died. He’d have felt it. If he hadn’t, what good is it to have this intuition? What good is it to have any of this connection with the fucking Force, at all?

What good was it to have their union on the dilapidated Resistance vessel if Ren was destined to die the same day? To have Ren with him, around him, inside him, hold Ren’s deepest secrets and feelings in his heart, illuminate his most private emotions and desires—only to never see Ren again? He doesn’t understand.

 _“That’s why you love me,”_ Ren echoes, already molded into a mental picture.

Hux wavers on the edge of the pit. It’s too much, too empty—

Drawing his blaster, Hux swivels around on his heel, aiming at the rapid footfalls emanating from the cave’s entrance. The figure skids into view. Hux chokes, blaster clattering to the stony ground.

Marin races ahead, lungs aching. But his blood pumps him fierce with exhilaration at the sight of his father. Tears from the acidity in the air blur his vision, along with tears of relief. He zooms into Hux’s arms, scarred hands scrabbling at the softness of Hux’s sweatshirt.

“Marin,” Hux breathes, cradling the boy’s head, “what are you doing here?”

Pulling back, Marin blinks his enflamed eyes up to his father. He coughs, attempting to form words but unable to speak against the constant stinging of his throat. _I had to make sure they wouldn’t take you again,_ Marin says into Hux’s mind. _And I needed to see you. I need to go with you._

As natural as instinct, Hux clamors for Ren’s blood-soaked rebreather. He secures it on Marin’s face, activating the life support system.

Marin’s eyes yawn wide around the reprieve the mask gives him. He gulps in cool, refreshing breaths of air that he can breathe just fine without needing the Force to do its charm. Though he does pull aid from the Force to cleanse the burn from his eyes and the ache in his chest and sinuses, until he feels healthy and right. “Oh, stars, that really makes a difference,” Marin blinks through the transparent mask. Transparent if not for the thick film of blood blocking Hux from his view.

“What were you thinking?” Hux scorns, concern bubbling up inside him. He’s too relieved to see Marin to be irked how he’s worrying like a mother, like General Organa. Swiping away Ren’s blood form the glass with his shirtsleeve, Hux connects their twin pair of eyes. “You could have gotten yourself killed.”

“I’m alright. I swear. We need to get going. There isn’t much time—” Marin stops himself, receiving his father’s involuntary projection.

This is Kylo Ren’s blood he’s looking through. “What happened?” Marin gasps.

“I don’t know. He’s—gone.” It’s true, neither he nor Marin can sense him near.

Marin focuses past Hux, to the expanse right behind them. He can feel Hux’s eyes on him, his mental hand holding him back from the edge. Carefully, he peers into the pit. He sees past the storm, past the murky unknown. “What is this?” he breathes, gaze heedless on the chasm a step from his two feet.

“Hells, your guess is as good as mine.” Hux needs Marin to back away from the pit.

“He’s in there,” Marin tells him, careful, gaping down into the storm. “This is the Force’s doing, as all things are. He must’ve fallen down.”

The boy’s confidence in this strange, cryptic place—Hux doesn’t know what to make of it. “He’s alive?”

Marin frowns. “I don’t know.” He can’t be sure. He feels Kylo Ren in a faraway place.

Hux flicks his eyes to the mouth of the cave. “What about Snoke?”

“I don’t know.”

The unmistakable shrill drones of a TIE fighter’s laser cannons pierce the hum of the cave, distant and above. Hux flinches, carding a hand in Marin’s sandy hair.

“What was that?” the boy gasps.

“That was us.”

 

\--

 

Rey pilots the transport around the assault of laser cannon fire. “I’m gonna pull us out of this! Finn—”

“On it!” Finn shouts in reply to Rey’s command, sprinting to the transport’s gunner position. How the hell did they think getting past the First Order in one of their own bases would be possible, let alone sane!

And what was Poe thinking, breaking apart from his squadron to make a landing in some half-witted effort to investigate?

Rey dodges another stream of laser cannon fire, moves defensive. By sheer luck one of their Starfighters takes down the TIE fighter from their rear, sending it into a fit of explosions.

 _“Rey, come back,”_ urges Jessika Pava, one of the squadron’s other Starfighter pilots.

“Was that you who just saved our skins?” Rey grins in relief.

_“Yeah, but don't bother celebrating. I got a transmission from BB-8. Poe’s out cold. BB-8 said a kid stowed away aboard his Starfighter but Poe didn't seem to care until he opened his dome. Know anything about that?”_

Blanching, Rey whips her head around to Luke. “Do you think it's possible Marin—”

Luke’s already comming General Organa, praying she's got eyes on him back ok the safety of their cruiser. “Leia, come in. Marin. Is he with you?”

Unwilling to risk the chance Marin’s on the moon that's rapidly turning into a battlefield, Rey makes for a landing to Poe’s parked ship. More TIE fighters are already on their way, filling their cockpit with its distinctive droning.

 _“I sent him back to D’Qar with Chewie. Why, what's happened?”_ the general replies, worry tightening her voice.

Luke frowns pensively. “Are you sure about that?”

“Finn! Poe’s Starfighter is down there! Get ready to make a run for it on foot.” Rey guides the vessel down to the base of a high cliff. “He must’ve used his powers to get here.” Rey doesn't partition any time to fathom the implications of Marin, an untrained Force user, mind-controlling Poe, a master pilot and tactician.

“Poe, do you copy?” Finn urges, joining Rey in the loading hatch and arming themselves with rebreathers. “Do you think he passed out because of the atmosphere?” he turns to Rey.

“It was probably Marin. He's going to get himself killed at this rate.” She hopes they aren’t too late.

Poe’s Starfighter is their first stop. Finn jogs up to his slumped over form, palming his clothed neck. “He's unconscious. But I think he's alright.”

“Marin went down this way.” Rey translates for BB-8, who buzzes in concern for its master from the confines of the Starfighter. She glares down between the split of the valley, narrow and endless.

“I'll stay with him,” Luke tells them. “He won't listen to me. Marin trusts you two.”

Nodding once, the two Jedi dash towards the tunnel.

 

\--

 

A tumultuous dread sways Hux on his feet. “They're here, too. The Resistance,” he states the obvious. If he gets captured again there’ll be no telling if he’d ever be able to see Ren to safety.

Worry spiking, Marin clutches his father’s hand. “Let's go. We'll go back to the Millennium Falcon and leave this place. I'll make sure they won't get to you.” His powers worked once before and he's confident they will aid them again.

Hux’s skin crawls. What if Ren’s lying at the bottom of that pit bleeding out, with no hope of rescue? “I can't fly that ship.” It's the truth. The hardware is ridiculously modified and impossible to control.

“Then we can take Poe Dameron’s ship. We'll give it right back, after your safe. We don't have much time!” Tugging on Hux’s arm, Marin urges him to follow.

But Hux doesn’t budge.

“Hux! It’s time to go,” he pleads.

Begrudging regret stings sharply for what Hux is about to do. “I can’t leave him.”

Marin can’t believe what he’s hearing. “You said that that was us, the First Order. The explosions. That means you can get your Stormtroopers to come back for him, right? Rey and Finn are getting close! They will take you prisoner again. We have to leave right now!”

“He might not have much time.” Hux turns away from his son, away from the boy’s anguish and confusion. “I have to—”

“No, you don’t! He left us. On purpose. He doesn’t want us,” Marin tells him, unwavering. All his life he’d dreamed about being united with Kylo Ren, and when it finally happened, his whole world had ruptured. Kylo Ren tore apart everything he almost had.

More laser cannons ring loud and threatening around them, and the caves walls tremble under their destruction above.

“Please, Father,” he begs. “We’re running out of time.”

“I can’t!” Hux bellows. Selfish, selfish, selfish. Selfish and selfless all at once. “If there’s a chance he’s here and I can bring him back—I have to take it.” Spinning around, Hux kneels low, gripping the boy’s arms. “Your powers. Is there any way you can use them to keep the Resistance at bay?” Hux implores, frantic for Ren’s wellbeing. How things have changed, Hux will never be able to understand how he let it get this bad.

Marin clenches his fists, conflicted. “I don’t know—”

“Please, just long enough for me to get him out of there. And I promise we’ll go”

Marin recoils at Hux’s desperation to rescue Kylo Ren in the face of certain death. “There isn’t time for him, Hux. The Resistance is coming for you and you have to leave now!”

“I can’t leave him. Just—just wait here until I bring him back,” Hux implores.

Rage bubbling, Marin yanks at Hux’s arm. “We don’t need him!”

“Yes, I do!” Hux expels. _“We_ do,” he backtracks. “We both do.”

But Marin is having none of it. “You care about him more than you care about me,” Marin accuses, hot resentment coiling through his torrent of tears. “You’re exactly like him! I never mattered to you!”

Hux buckles under the boy’s fury. “That’s not true,” Hux grates against the tightening of his throat. “You always mattered. You were the one thing in my life that I’d always, without fail held so close to my heart. I should never have allowed Ren to keep us apart.”

“He put you to sleep so that he could leave without me. It’s not your fault,” Marin argues, anger melting to sorrow. “He did this to us. I know you would have fought him if you could.” He’s not as sure of this as he was then. But he wants to believe it. He needs to.

Hux crumples, taking his son’s scarred hands in his own. He’s never asked about the scars. He doesn’t want to know the answer, how Hux’s neglect led to his son’s suffering. The cave rumbles with another stream of cannon fire. “When I had you, I was made to believe I was going to care for you as you grow. But then Ren—he was so young and foolish—he lied to me and told me you were supposed to be given to Snoke. And I barely—I barely put up a fight. I turned my back on you because I wasn’t brave enough to defy Snoke and go against orders,” he confesses, imploring Marin to understand.

But how could he ask that of his child? He’s given Marin nothing.

Had he been brave enough, he would have disserted the First Order and taken Marin far, far away. Marin would have grown with him since birth, and wouldn’t have those scars on his hands or those tears in his eyes. But his son’s tears gush, his hands have bled, his heart breaks. All because of him.

“But I won’t make that mistake again. I’m coming right back this time. Do you understand?” Hux pleads. Because he can’t do any of this if it means having to do it without Ren.

Marin’s face twists at his father’s confession. Hux gave him up, just as Kylo Ren did. Somehow he knew this had happened. It only makes sense. He’s never been worth sticking around for.

The Resistance is on their tails and they’re almost out of time. Rey and Finn’s firelights are close. Close enough for him to put them to sleep again like he had done on the cruiser. But that was what he wanted to do then, and this is now. Hux is shoving him away.

Hux has been shoving him away since he was born.

“Just wait here, and if the Resistance tries to take you, you know what to do. It’ll be alright,” Hux vows.

Marin watches as Hux climbs down the edge, not even sparing him a parting glance.

“Marin!” shout Rey and Finn from the mouth of the inner cave. The hiss of their lightsabers whip Marin’s head around, prepared to defend Hux regardless of how little Hux cares for him. He whips out his spitter and a large stone, drawing back on the elastic. It’s natural as instinct, like how he knows how to breathe, how to heal, and how he knows his name was meant to be Marin.

He could twist these Jedi’s minds. Force them to use their powers to pluck Hux out of the pit and deposit him at Marin’s feet. He could turn their brains off like light switches to make sure him and Hux escape without a scratch. A tear trickles down his cheek, one he can’t swipe away because of his rebreather mask.

Kylo Ren tossed him away like he was garbage. Hux gave him up when he was just a baby.

Rey and Finn are the only ones who came back for him.

“We have to go!” Rey shouts over the rumble of laser cannon fire to the slumped, confused boy. With her powers, she senses his anger is directed inward, rapidly locking the feelings away as if they were wounds that he’s attempting to heal, torn edges he’s trying to mend. She feels his betrayal, realization. An all too familiar bitter, resounding acceptance.

 _Rey, hurry!_ Luke calls over their connection. Unhelpful. She knows exactly what’s at stake.

“Marin, the cave is going to collapse. There isn’t any time. Please, Marin,” Finn urges, stepping close.

“I’m so, so sorry about your fathers,” Rey tells him, her hatred for the pair renewed, bordering lethal. No child should ever have to go through what’s just happened to Marin. Selfish, heartless individuals with no regard for the destruction they leave in their son’s life.

The cave trembles and Finn wastes no more time. “I’m gonna pick you up, and you better not try and fight me,” Finn says after another round of cannon fire threaten to crush them under the cave’s walls. His method of comfort is a little different from Rey’s.

Two little arms blindly reach for Finn, surprising them both. Finn gasps in relief. “That’s it, buddy. Come on.”

Together they dash out of the bright white cave, back to the safety of the transport. Luke is waiting for them, already having loaded Poe’s unconscious body inside. BB-8 rolls eagerly to watch over him.

Marin opens his tearful eyes over Finn’s shoulder, just in time to see a blast of cannon fire obliterate the opening of the trench, and the slabs of rock tumbling downward. Sealing the cave, dissolving all hope.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not gonna lie, i'm posting one chapter right after this so no one will yell at me for this chapter's angst!!!! even tho i #had #to #do #it #to #them hahah... anyway please go on to the next chapter :>) i hope you enjoy it :>)


	21. Chapter 21

 

 

 

 

Hux gasps, choking on wet, pungent saltiness. His knees scrape along the grate of sinking muck as his limbs flounder for balance.

He opens his eyes.

Fading sunlight casts the landscape in a haze. Greenwood trees and shrubbery, stones and sand. Behind him is an ocean, roaring with angry waves.

This doesn’t make any sense. One second he’s slipping off a stony ledge in a pit on an asteroid and the next he’s washing up on some beach? His rebreather’s gone, but his clothes are the same besides the fact they are soaking wet. He presses a hand to his abdomen, feeling his organs shift like a bed of coiling serpents. Panic spikes his heartbeat at the oddly familiar sensation.

Is this a dream? A vision, like Ren’s? It feels so real, so vivid from the saline sea to the crisp winds forcing him forward.

Ren has got to be here somewhere. There has to be a reason for this nonsense.

A branch snaps. Hux flings himself towards the noise, kicking up sand. “Ren?” he calls, desperate to see that wild head of hair.

“Not quite,” comes a female voice, unrecognizable but familiar in some strange, outlandish, inexplicable way.

The woman reveals herself. Deep red hair, tumbling in waves past her shoulders. Wide blue eyes, the musculature of a fighter, age sharpening the corners of her eyes and the dips of her cheeks. She rivals his height in her dark layered tunic, bound at the waist in a fashion that reminds him of Ren.

Red hair, stacking height, refined features. He’s only had one picture of his birthmother, though she was a teenager. The woman before him, however, looks almost nothing like the woman in the photograph. Absurdly, the still question begs on his tongue.

“No, I’m not your mother. Thank the maker for that. But you do know my daughter, Rey.”

The realization is as startling as it is preposterous. The scavenger’s mother? “Where am I? Have you come to escort me back to capture?”

“No, although you are well deserving of imprisonment.” The mysterious woman turns on her heel, stepping in a straight line through the trees.

Hux blinks blearily up at the twilight sky. It’s gotten a shade darker from just a few moments ago. He spits the saltiness from his tongue and trudges inland after her.

“What is this place? Where are the rest of your people?” Hux narrowly misses tripping on a branch.

“Not here.”

Hux scoffs. “Where is ‘here’ and why aren’t you with them?”

“I’ve been dead for nearly fifteen years,” divulges the scavenger’s mother. “Before you get started again with the panicking, you’re not dead. Not yet.”

At a complete loss of words, Hux helplessly trails after this dead woman. So this must be a dream. Though why he would dream of some Jedi he’s never met or even heard of is a complete mystery.

The woman stops just before the break of a clearing. The sky is dim enough to see the glow of stars illuminating the grassy bed before them. About ten meters away from them sits a man, salt and pepper hair tugged into a ponytail at the base of his skull. He’s facing away, reclined in the lotus position.

Hux immediately recognizes the man as Ren. Older, shoulders sagging slightly with age, though every bit as solid with muscle.

This is a vision. There’s no other explanation. He’s tempted to make a break for this older Ren, meditating under the starlight. Beg him all the questions about what their future holds—together or apart.

“Like you, and unlike Kylo Ren, I rose from the dark side.” She says his name with confidence, with respect. Unafraid to call him his chosen name, as General Organa had been. “I grew up under the Galactic Empire, murdered hundreds if not thousands of souls. The Emperor’s apprentice as I was, I became hell-bent on slaying the man responsible for his demise and the downfall of the Empire. And I fell into bed with him—you know how that goes.”

“What’s your point,” Hux growls impatiently.

“That I renounced the dark side when I realized I’d poisoned this galaxy enough. I took on another mantle as a mother. And Jedi Master. And Skywalker.”

“And look how well the Skywalker name has served you,” Hux sneers, looking from Ren to glare at her eye to eye.

She laughs, and its then Hux can see the uncanny resemblance between the scavenger and her mother. “I’m not the only one who carries the burden of the Skywalker name.”

“We’re not fucking married,” he deadpans.

She simply shrugs.

Hux flinches when four crimson beams of lightsabers break the stagnant lull of the jungle. Both to the right of Ren, a mere leaping distance from attack. The woman yanks Hux back from lunging to aid the meditating Ren.

She holds up a hand. “Just watch.”

Ren’s lone saber shoots from his side. A blue blade, uncanny brilliance revealing the extent of Ren’s graying hair. Hux frowns.

The figures with the red lightsabers come into view.

Two young women. Identical twins. Black hair twisted into braids down their skulls and over their shoulders like twi’leks. Dark eyes, athletic stature, regal profiles and cutting jawlines, fisting red lightsabers in each hand. Breathtaking in their beauty and potential for destruction. Hux’s heartbeat falters with raw sentiment. Though he hasn’t got a clue why.

Ren stands, cocking his saber in challenge. He turns to them. Waiting.

The sparring match is unlike any Hux has ever seen. A flail of reds and blue, streaking in the growing darkness, blades hissing and parrying. Ren spars one, deflecting her stabs and twists. He fends off the other while the first one watches, rolling her neck to stretch.

The second woman relies more on invisible pushes and flips, toting the element of surprise and diversion where the first woman was all relentless, dexterous attack.

Something in his stomach flips. Hux tears his eyes from the training session and back to the scavenger’s mother. “Who are they?”

“They’re Kylo Ren’s apprentices.”

He doesn’t understand why Ren would be sparring in the twilight and why any of this would even happen and _why_ he’d even need to be shown such a vision in the first place. “This is the future?” Hux asks dumbly. If this is the future then where does he fit into all this?

“It’s the end of a path well-traveled,” she says cryptically.

Hux gapes, in want of more answers. “What about Marin?” he entreats. “Where is he in this future?”

“He died as a young boy,” she eyes him, and Hux barely has time to reel on the implications of that statement before she continues. “Years ago. Long before he could see his two sisters grow into women.”

Overwhelming astonishment wracks him, electrifying the rhythmic pulse of blood to his brain. Sisters?

Daughters?

Hux palms his abdomen. Impossible. Physiologically, technically, logically impossible. There’s no fucking way he’s—

“It’s not that hard to believe, Hux. More complicated, improbable things have occurred in this galaxy.”

“That’s not how it happened the first time. There were surgeons and tests and _droids_ ,” he sputters. He shouldn’t still have his womb. He’d have thought the Resistance surgeons had removed it when they took Marin out of him. “It would have taken a lot more than what we—did.” They only fucked once! It’s not like he has a birth canal. It’s just not possible.

The scavenger’s mother turns to face him dead on. “The Force grants solace to forgiving and good willed hearts.”

“What in all hells is that supposed to mean?” Hux groans, attempting to sense the lifeforms in his gut. He can’t. Not yet.

“It means that where biology fails, the Force will mend the holes. Take your son, Marin. His powers were soul bending and physical healing. Biologically, he was normal, but—”

“He’s not dead,” Hux hisses at her use of Marin in the past-tense. Soul bending? “This is just a dream. You, Ren and those—girls, aren’t real.” He tries to convince himself but knows the truth shines within, bright as sunlight.

What the fuck’s the point in the Force having him bear a child again? _Two_ children at once? Is the damned Skywalker bloodline such a fucking necessity that Hux must be forced to carry more into this galaxy? Their destiny to be used, to be killed for the advancement of men more powerful than them?

“How did Marin die?” Hux chokes.

She nods at Ren, sparring mercilessly against the pair of girls. “His father killed him.”

His throat tightens, strangling him under the weight of the truth laid bare. A million questions bubble up from his throat. “Is he going to kill them?” he finds himself asking. He ogles the twins, their Ren-like smirks and stature. They look almost nothing like Hux, more like General Organa if he had to name someone.

“It isn’t written in stone, but it looks like that might be a possibility,” she says reluctantly, heavy with dread. “There are many bloody ends to this path.”

“What are their names?” he whispers, choking on grief for the death of his children.

“They go by different names than the ones you gave them.”

Heart shattering, Hux gapes at the little monsters and their master. Ren’s watching now as the two go blades to blades against each other, the clash of red violent and pulsing.

If this is the path well-traveled, there must be a fork in the road somewhere along. This can’t be the end.

“If this is the future, then where am I?” Hux begs, dreading the answer. The scavenger’s mother answers with a pointed look to the stars.

Through the trees overhead, the sky dims to blackness, succinct and final. Nighttime incurred unnaturally, manipulated by the hands of mortal men.

“Oh, I loathe this part,” the scavenger’s mother laments, grimacing up at the starlit space-sky.

A blood red stab of light permeates the cloudless sky, growing exponentially within every beat of Hux’s racing heart. He’s never been on this end of such destruction.

“It’s a long and painstaking process for the formation of a planet. Billions and billions of years, beginning as compacting stardust to the tectonics that rippled lifeform giving gasses onto its surface. The universe is expanding in all directions and while more planets form every second, there’s no recreating that one place—that special place. Home.” The scavenger’s mother’s tears capture the glow of cataclysm from above. “To destroy one wills a special brand of soullessness. It takes away what makes you human.”

The light grows stronger, hotter, inflaming the atmosphere with its relentless scorch. Helplessly, he stares to Ren who critiques the girls on their battle form, oblivious to the bleeding sky.

Corneas blistering, Hux faces his fate.

There’s nowhere to run.

 

\--

 

Kylo Ren blinks once, then twice, into the reflection before him. As if he’s jumped from his own skin then back inside, he brushes his fingertips against his jaw to rediscover his flesh.

He trails his hand to his neck, where Snoke had slit his throat. The skin is unbroken. Ren fondles his chest, but the searing wound that he’d inflicted on himself through and out from between his shoulders is nonexistent, clothes unburned, hellish agony of the blade a distant memory.

Vader’s lightsaber sits clipped on his belt. The ghost’s boots bind his feet, protective and grounding.

He blinks around. He’s in the Millennium Falcon. He doesn’t remember how he got back here. He doesn’t understand how he’s not dead. But now that he’s back at the Falcon, hopefully Hux is still passed out.

One step and Ren wavers, the artificial gravity swaying his balance. Artificial gravity? Someone must have piloted the Falcon off the moon. The threat of the Resistance recapturing Hux looms once more, and Ren tears through the door with a renewed fury, unclipping Vader’s saber.

Marching to the cockpit, Ren scours for signs of the enemy. But the cockpit is empty, as is the loading bay where he’d left Hux. The twinkle of stars fills the Falcon’s main viewport. No planets or other ships, just stars sunken in the blackness of outer space.

Ren fiddles with the controls. The power is out.

A faint clanking of tools breaks the silence of the ship, deep past the main living level. Unease tightens his gut, but Ren’s confident he can take on any Resistance fighter. As long as he has his lightsaber at his side.

His booted feet carry him into the bowels of the ship, floating on air, dreamlike and daunting.

Ren stops at the end of the hall to the opening of the circuitry bay. A path he’s traveled before as a boy, following the sounds of the mechanic in hopes he could help repair the ship and get them moving on their next adventure.

Blood ringing in his ears, Ren breaks the threshold of the circuitry bay.

His hands tremble, fingertip skating along the trigger to Vader’s lightsaber. Skin tightening every inch of his body, gut churning like meat in a grinder. A torrent of shock tunnels his vision. His glassy, awestruck eyes bore into the back of the ghost.

Han Solo digs into some compartment, tightening or untightening something that needs to be meddled with. The silver of his hair brushes against the top lip of the Falcon’s casing. Creases of worn leather pinch around his working shoulders, crinkling with every rhythmic twist of his elbow.

“Pass me the Harris wrench. Twelve gauge,” Solo asks, voice gravelly with age.

Ren flinches so hard that his jaw cracks against his top set of teeth.

“C’mon, kid. We don’t have all day,” Solo calls over his shoulder. Ren eyes the scar on his chin, visible from his profile.

He’s never had a dream like this—mundane and routine, _jarring_. A memory from the childhood of a boy he murdered long ago. A memory of Ben’s, the son of a smuggler and a rebel princess.

Hands on autopilot, Ren reaches for the wrench. He knows the one—black notches on the handle, head jaundiced with carbon scoring. Lightsaber heavy on his hip, Ren passes Solo the wrench.

Solo finishes his work on the compartment, locking it in place with a small tab. He gets to his feet, knees creaking. “One day I’m gonna have to reroute those outputs. Can’t keep bending like that for much longer.”

All questions, all reasoning, dies in Ren’s throat.

Solo turns around, cracking into an easy grin. “Don’t look so glum. Guys like us are lucky to get this old. Just you wait.”

The Harris wrench flatters in the tool box with the rest of the array of gauges. Solo freezes, narrowing his eyes. “Are those my boots?”

Ren gapes, eyes darting around the complex conduits of the circuitry bay for an answer.

But Solo waves a hand dismissively. “Keep ‘em. I know you wouldn’t be wearing anything of mine unless it was for a good reason.” He shuffles the rest of the strewn tools into the kit and moves past the threshold of the circuitry bay.

“Am I dead?” Ren exclaims to Solo’s back, wrought with despair.

Halting in his tracks, Solo turns to face him. “Yeah,” he divulges, matter-of-fact. “But don’t get used to it. You’ll be alive and kicking soon enough.”

“I don’t understand,” Ren laments.

“Understand this. There’s still work to do. Let’s get moving,” Solo barks.

Ren seethes. He was supposed to have died while taking down Snoke. It was supposed to be over. “You’re dead,” he accuses the ghost.

But Solo merely shrugs, hands flopping against his sides. “You caught me.”

Tears well in Ren’s eyes. “What the hell is happening?” he grates, the black cancerous sludge rippling heavy in his gut.

“I’ve got to get you out of here so you can clean up your mess. Come on, kid.” Solo shakes his head, marching to the cockpit.

Helplessly, Ren follows in his steps.

On their way to the cockpit Solo stops at the engineering panel. He flicks it on, studying the information blinking back through the screen of the ancient technology.

“Why are you—” Ren chokes on his words, unable to form the pleas crawling up his tongue. _Why are you helping me? Why do you care?_

“Second chances are almost impossible to get right. You figure, hey, I already fucked this up once. How can I make the same damn mistakes again?” Solo tells him animatedly, shoulders cocking along the flutter of his colorful expressions. “You’ve got free reign to blunder around like a club-footed nerf before then—believe me, I set that example in stone so I’m the last person to call you out with blame—but your second chance will come. It will.”

Solo whips around, eye to eye with Ren’s hapless grimace. He wags his finger in the drilling way he’s done so many times before to Ben as a young boy. “There are no do-overs. That’s not how it works. But one day you’ll have the opportunity and the means to make things right to the people you hurt. And you’re gonna take it. If you don’t, if you pass it up, it’ll kill you. It’ll tear the heart right out of you.”

Throat contorting, Ren’s face twists. “It’s too late.” He’s said it before. He means it more, this time. Everything’s squandered, once and for all.

“It’s not. Not unless you allow it to be.”

“It’s over. He already hates me,” Ren laments for the son he fought against nature to bring into the galaxy, only to abandon him just when he’d willingly followed. He’s sealed his son’s demise, destined to follow him into the bowels of a fiery pit.

Solo’s brow wrinkles. “Who hates you?”

He doesn’t know. Ren had thought the dead would be omniscient in some mystical way, raised to the level of gods once reunited with the Force. It’s a silly, childish notion. Humans are humans. “Marin. He’s my, um,” his tongue lolls around the confession. “He’s my son.”

Eyes widening, Solo’s sunken cheeks dimple with an astonished smile. “Your son? Marin?”

Chin puckering, Ren nods. “He’s about eight years old. I think. I don’t—I don’t really know.”

“Wow. How about that.” Solo’s eyes catch the lighting overhead, glittering in wonder with the discovery of his grandchild. Ren’s heart aches impossibly more for what he’s taken from Solo in addition to taking his life.

“Yeah, he’s—um, he’s something.” Ren doesn’t know what else to say.

“I don’t doubt it. Who’s the lucky lady?” Solo grins, oblivious.

Ducking his head to his chest, Ren flushes. “It’s complicated.”

Solo chuckles, shaking his head. “Always is. You know I always regretted not asking your mother to marry me.”

Ren wobbles under the shift of the conversation. “I thought you had.”

“Well, yeah, I meant asking her again after she said no the first time,” he raises his brows.

“I’ve hurt her,” Ren’s voice cracks, feeling small.

Solo nods. “You did. But you still have time to fix that.”

“How?” Ren begs.

“Start with Marin. Let me guess. He’s sitting somewhere wondering where you went?”

Ren’s silent, contorted expression serves as his answer.

“Whatever made you leave in the first place? Forget it. He needs his father,” Solo urges, practiced confidence melting away as someone does when they fail to take their own advice.

“He hates me. I’ve disappointed him. I’m—fuck, I’m terrified.” _He hates me so much. One day he’ll murder me in cold blood without a second thought._

“I’m gonna need you to do the one thing I could never manage to do myself. Grow up,” he tells him, not unkindly. “And man-up.” Solo slaps his shoulder, jostling his frame. “You’re a father. Start acting like it.”

Ren wavers, forcing out a nod.

“This is it,” Solo tells him once they’re in the cockpit.

“Where are we going?” Ren gazes past the stars piercing the Falcon’s viewport.

Solo adjusts a lever, priming his ship. “I’m not going anywhere, but you sure are.”

Everything in Ren’s heart tells him this will be the last time he’ll ever see his father again.

“You were right,” Ren implores, earnest, the dam shattering. “Snoke was a liar. I should have gone with you. I shouldn’t have—”

“Kid,” Solo begins. “You wanna do right by me, you wanna be forgiven, and I get it. Do right by me by doing right by them. Your mother, your son, _his_ mother. All of them.”

“I don’t know if I can,” he sobs.

“You’re gonna have to try,” Solo promises.

Foundations shifting, Ren stiffens around his father’s embrace. He lets go of who he’s become, wrapping his arms around his father for the first time as a grown man. Tears flow freely, messily, the devastation of a child crumpling his features. He weeps in mourning for his father, for Ben, sagging under the weight of his walls toppling down.

“It’s gonna be alright,” comes the gravelly vow in his ear. Ren squeezes tighter, Solo’s jacket collar digging into the scar tissue on his jaw.

“I don’t—” he sobs, “I can’t do it. I can’t—”

But his father has the perfect solution: an imperfect solution held together by faith and choice. “Will it help if you make me a promise? You’re gonna try your damnedest to make it right?”

Ren nods. He’s powerless to quell his tears. “I promise.”

“I always believed you’d do the right thing,” his father says, smile somber with regret. 

“I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry,” Ren snivels.

His father cradles the base of his skull. “I’m sorry, too. For everything.”

Ren buries his face in Solo’s shoulder, quaking with ebbing sobs.

“It’s time, kid,” his father tells him. “Time to let go.”

Pulling back, Ren meets his eyes. He nods once, gummy lashes fluttering. Solo cups his cheek, smirking his smuggler’s smirk.

Solo settles in the pilot’s chair and his son seats copilot. The panel thrums to life, buttons blinking and engines revving. Ren already knows which tabs to activate. He begs one final look to his father.

They blast off into hyperspace. With a white flash, the Force breathes life back into Ren’s bones.

Back aboard the real Falcon in the land of the living, Ren sits alone before the striping stars.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes hux and ren's vision's are drama llama central, but just to clear a few things up:
> 
> \- yes that's rey's dead momther Mara Jade from the Extended Universe. even tho she's not in the cinematic canon (yet, hopefully!!) i used her history as an operative of the Empire and Sidious's apprentice. i'm not an expert on her character but that's basically some key points. and yes there is a good reason hux speaks to her in his vision!
> 
> \- yes hux is pregnant again :>) trust me it will all come together :>) i know it sounds nuts but ... CONCEPT: TWIN BABIES. BETTER CONCEPT: HUX WITH TWIN BABSI
> 
> \- yes okay i tricked you guys, kylo DID die for .003 of this fic, but as you see he came #backtolife, #backtoreality after an emotional dad solo moment! so yes, no MCD just temporary char death, and seeing that he lived at the end of the chapter he died i hid it from y'all. please forgive me. its important that he was #ressurected. btw hux didn't die, he just had a Force-trip. kylo died (and came back to life!!) AND as had a Force-trip times a million because he needed to get that push as we all know he seriously, seriously needed!
> 
> again thank you so much for reading!!!!!!! one more chapter to go then we have the final sequel!!!!!!!!!!!!


	22. Chapter 22

 

 

_“I’m coming right back.”_

Gasping, Hux abrades his fingers in the dry sand. His eyes boggle from behind the glass of the rebreather tight around his skull, his panicked breaths clouding the glass. Sitting up, he surveys the area for the visage of Ren and the twins and the scavenger’s mother.

But the vision is over. He’s back on the barren waste of the moon’s salt flat. In the distance are the towering cliff faces, as far away as they had been before he left the Resistance ship and chased after Ren. That’s where Marin should be waiting for him!

The strange Resistance ship he and Ren had escaped in is nowhere to be found. Damn. He’ll be forced to make the trek on foot again. Attempting to get to his feet, Hux stumbles, hissing at the protest in his spine. Fatigue ruptures his resilience. Physical, emotional exhaustion, eating like rust. His stomach heaves, and he remembers.

Hands palming the flatness of his abdomen, he concentrates. His eyes prick with a new rush of tears.

He can feel the lights now, bright and tentative like a pair of virgin wicks ignited into flame. A sob bubbles up from his swelling throat. The twins are there. By nothing short of an improbable, terrifying miracle, cells multiplying surely and steadily.

This can’t be. Not now, not after everything.

Not without Ren.

Of course Ren, because the galaxy despises him, is nowhere to be found. He’s alone, carrying Ren’s unborn _children_ on some hidden, toxic moon. Summoning the strength to swallow his tears, Hux scrabbles to his feet, balance wavering against the stillness of the air.

Stiffening, Hux blanches at the lump of black several meters from him. Could it be?

“Ren!” he pleads, rushing over to his aid. He falls to his knees—and recoils.

It’s Snoke. Charred torso, arms twisted, eyes glazed in death. There’s no footprints, no sign that someone dumped his body here. Overcome with rage for all the suffering this monster inflicted on him, Hux takes the blaster from his hip and fries his skull. The salt flat echoes with the blowback. The chapter’s finished. He can move on.

He stalks in the direction of his and Ren’s footprints, toward the cliff faces. Because Marin did what he asked. Marin is there waiting for him. He has to be.

Hux might puke from whirl of terror when he spots the familiar hull of a First Order shuttle parked in the distance. Several Stormtroopers diligently scout along the horizon line with their scanners. One of their helmets falls on Hux.

“My Lord!” shouts a Stormtrooper to his leader, Phasma, sporting an enormous blaster rifle and a goggled rebreather, jogs over to the commotion. “We’ve found him.”

Hux shoves past the trooper, desperate to find his son.

Marin is nowhere to be found. Panicking, Hux jogs to the trench. It’s collapsed. There’s no going in or coming out of it.

“Hux,” barks Phasma behind him.

Fingernails slicing open his fists, Hux whips around. “Where is the Resistance?”

Neither Hux nor Phasma waver from their beeline towards each other. She readjusts the strap on her rifle. “Are you harmed?”

“Where did they go?” he repeats. “Did you find anyone?” Surely Marin would be able to disguise himself from unknown threats like Phasma and her army.

“They scurried off long before I arrived. Ren inflated the timetable, as usual.”

“Are you sure? There has to be—” Hux chokes against the pathetic plea, when his eyes fall on a broken, forgotten object lying against the rubble.

It’s Marin’s weapon, his slingshot. Hux recognizes it from his son’s description back when they were in captivity, talking and talking. He remembers it in his son’s clenched hand as he fought off the two Jedi coming to take him back with their people. Marin must have dropped it.

In his attempt to escape. With _them_.

Marin’s gone. He went back with the Resistance. Because Hux went after Ren like some love-struck hero. Abandoning Marin and chasing after Ren to bring him to safety. And because of that, the Resistance has his son. Anger towards them decays to regret, grief for the consequences of his brashness. Human fallacies he doesn’t recognize, chipping away at his shell until a new self is formed. He has no one to blame but himself.

He picks up the broken slingshot. Marin’s gone. Ren is—

“Where is Ren?” Phasma demands.

Hux grimaces past her at the destroyed Resistance Starfighter and the dust of the rocks hanging in the air to the collapsed trench. There’s no way back in, not on foot anyway. “I don’t know.”

“Snoke?”

“His corpse is out that way,” Hux waves a hand, without an ounce of concern for their superficial victory.

Phasma instructs a team of troopers to retrieve his body. She breathes in relief, easier now that wretched Snoke is out of the picture. Boots dragging in the salt, Phasma turns. “I guess that’s that.”

“We have to look for Ren. He could be injured,” he blurts. “He defeated Snoke for you, and saved my life. We both owe him a debt.”

“There aren’t any lifeforms here, not any with a pulse.”

“Can you be sure?” he implores in unrestrained heartbreak for the son he’d left behind.

“Everybody is long gone. We’ve been searching for you for hours. You didn’t appear on our scanners until a short while ago. Ren ordered me to bring you to safety and I’m a woman of my word, so if you don’t mind—get your ass on my transport.”

Hux wavers. Could Ren have taken the Resistance ship? If he’s no longer on this moon, he could be anywhere. “We need to search elsewhere. Anywhere. The freighter—ah, the Millennium Falcon,” he scours his memory. “Ren could be aboard.”

She cocks her head, an idea striking her. “Do you want your rank back, or not?” she demands, dubious.

His rank? When Ren could be dead? When his son is in the hands of the Resistance, detesting him with every breath? When he’s newly impregnated with twin Ren-lings? “What good would it do me to serve under someone like you?” he sneers.

“You have your strengths. I have mine. I’m not asking you to be my lackey. I need you to do what you do best—lead. The Finalizer is yours if you want it back.”

Hux resists palming his abdomen. What the fuck’s he supposed to do with two more children when he couldn’t even manage to hold onto the first one? “Things have changed for me.”

“Look, no one’s saying you can’t search to the ends of the stars for your boyfriend while on duty,” she scoffs. “You were a great man, once. I admired you.”

Great? Great was Starkiller. Great was the Empire. Great was his father—an imperial, a commandant, who if he was still alive would backhand Hux for his hesitance to rejoin the First Order. “What about you?”

“I have other projects in the works,” She tells him, ominous. Alluring.

Phasma signals to her troops, who are busy collecting their final readings of the Resistance wreckage, harvesting the main terminal from the Starfighter. The hoard of troopers return with Snoke’s corpse. Phasma smirks at the state of his collapsed skull, an enticing power glittering in her eyes. “Prepare to reload the ship,” she instructs them. She turns back to Hux. “So what’s it gonna be?”

Hux carries his eyes up to the stars peeking through the haze of the moon’s thin atmosphere. He takes a deep breath, fisting his son’s broken slingshot. Marin’s gone. Ren’s gone. He has nothing except his purpose, the path that was paved for him ever since he was a boy. He straightens, militaristic. He forces his hand away from the lifeforms quivering in his abdomen. “Lead the way.”

 

\--

 

Marin gazes out on the cruiser’s viewport, counting the specks of light.

They actually did lock him up this time. Not in a cell like Hux was, but in a bedroom fitted with a panel and cameras that let them see through the walls. He left his spitter, his coveted weapon, on the moon to collect dust.

None of these measures matter that much to him. He’s not going anywhere.

He’s run out of tears. Nothing really matters, anyway.

Grandmother comes to talk to him first. She doesn’t close the door behind her, but joins him on his cot.

“How are you feeling?”

Marin says nothing.

“You can blame them and be angry with them, and you should. But don't think for a second that they don't care,” she tells him. She prays she's right.

He gazes at the stars, every last one of them shinning alone and isolated. “They didn't want me then and they don't want me now.”

“They knew that if we were to capture him,” General Organa begins, treading carefully, “that you would be put in a terrible, terrible position. That's why they ran. It wasn't because they don't want you.”

“I would have gone with them! And we were so close! But Kylo Ren ruined everything.” Hux would rather be with Kylo Ren than him. Hux would rather jump off a cliff than be with him.

“He has a lot to make up for, Marin. To you and to the Jedi, to me. To all of us.”

“It doesn't matter. I don't care about him anymore.” Marin swipes at his cheek. Not yet out of tears, it would seem. Kylo Ren ruined _everything_.

“Marin, I understand—”

The boy whips his head around, anger stabbing in her direction. “I don't care about him! He means nothing to me!”

_“He means nothing to me,”_ echoes the voice of her son at age ten, fervent with despair. Deep within her heart, a tender, scabbed memory torn open and bleeding.

_Leia wilts with sorrow. “You don't mean that.” Her voice is soft and melodic with youth, not yet burdened by her son’s imminent betrayal._

_“Yes, I do,” Ben spits, shoving a fistful of clothing into his pack._

_“Your father has his problems. We both do. But he always wanted what was best for you, even on his worst of days. Just like he does now.”_

_Ben slams his fist into his wardrobe, mussing the poster of his favorite novel characters from the series about pirates and beautiful angels on the Moons of Iego. “You two don't care. You're just trying to get rid of me.”_

_“No one is forcing you to become a Jedi. Whether you like it or not, the Force has given you these powers for a reason. Luke will guide you and teach you how to control them. You're not obligated to train in the ways of the Jedi and become a Jedi warrior, but you can't ignore the call of the Force any longer.”_

_“I don't care about the stupid Force!” he growls, stashing his whittling tools and his sketch book. These creative instruments are all he needs for the life he longs to lead. “And I don't care about the Jedi. Uncle Luke just wants a soldier for his Jedi army. I'm not with him and I'm not with you and I'm leaving all of you and you can't stop me!”_

_“Where will you go?” Leia implores._

_“Somewhere far away,” the boy vows._

_Boots skid into the threshold. “There you are,” snaps Han. “What have I told you about yelling at your mother?”_

_Ben ignores him, zipping up his pack._

_“This isn't easy for any of us,” Han levels. “Your mother and I talked about this for a very, very long time and we decided—”_

_“Yeah_ you _decided,” Ben sniffles. “You were only thinking about what's easy for you. I never fit into anything.” He claws at his hair. “The voice was right about you,” he mumbles, grating low in his throat._

_Han narrows his eyes. “What voice?” he demands incredulously._

_“Han,” Leia starts, knowing just how insensitive he can be when he's not too careful._

_“No, no. Now Ben’s talking about hearing voices. What's it gonna be next week—seeing dead people?” Han scoffs._

_“Han!”_

_“He's coming up with excuses! Blaming everybody but himself. Sooner or later he's gonna have to face the consequences of his actions.”_

_“Cool it, Han. You're making this worse than it already is,” she retorts, bombarding his space. Ben uses this opportunity to barrel past his quarreling parents, pack secure over his shoulder._

_“Where do you think you’re going?” Han calls after him, gripping Ben’s thin bicep._

_“Get your stinking hands off me,” Ben tries to sound menacing but his eyes shine with thinly-veiled fear._

_Han has never hit Ben on any occasion, other than childhood spankings that he insisted worked for Ben’s discipline, but he was known to grab him every once in awhile._

_“Ben,” he starts, then eases his grip to a gentle anchor on his shoulder. “There comes a time in a young man's life when it doesn't get to be about just you anymore.”_

_Ben makes a face. “I'm ten.”_

_“I know that,” he exasperates. “But you won't be ten forever, as marvelous as that would be. One day you're gonna have a family of your own and you're gonna have to make sacrifices. You're gonna have to do things that you don't really wanna do, because it's good for not only you but for the people you love.”_

_“Your father is right,” Leia implores. “We can’t bear the thought of being separated from you, but there’s so much good Luke can teach you. You have so much potential to bring the light back in this galaxy once and for all.”_

_“But why do I have to go?” Ben pleads, anger evaporating from his small frame._

_“It won't be for forever,” Leia consoles. “Just until you can fully understand your powers. And then you can come back. You don't have to be a Jedi and be strong with the Force. You don’t have to be a Jedi to help people.”_

_“Like you?” Ben asks hopefully, impossibly younger._

_“Just like me,” Leia smiles. “Now, what do you say? We still have a little while before it's time to go.”_

_“You mean before it's time you kick me out,” Ben grumbles, attempting to play. But his hurt and anger lie dormant like a geyser._

_“We’re not kicking you out,” she swipes her thumb on his cheekbone. “We're trying to help you.” She cocks her head to Han. “I know it's late, but I feel like we can make an exception. Your father wants to take you for a ride in the Falcon. He'll turn the floodlights on so you can see all the trees. Right, Han?”_

_It takes only a moment for Han to decide to squander any and all argument. “Of course.”_

_He leans in to kiss Leia on the corner of her lips, making Ben wrinkle his nose. The pair give each other knowing looks before cupping Ben’s head, blowing raspberries into each of his cheeks. Ben groans animatedly but accepts the affection._

_“That's always super gross!” he snaps, swabbing at his face as soon as they pull away._

_“Don't get so sore. You know you're gonna miss your goofy parents,” Han jibes._

_“Yeah, right. It'll be like a vacation,” Ben counters, but there's a small smirk gracing his lips._

_“C’mon, kid,” Han ruffles Ben’s hair. “We can go to your favorite spot and make rock slides with the laser cannon.”_

_Ben grins. “And I’m in the pilot’s chair this time, right?”_

_Han laughs. “If you can manage to reach the steering, sure.”_

General Organa’s heart swells at the memory, Han’s hand on Ben’s shoulder and their excitement over the Falcon that only grew. But now the Falcon’s disappeared on all Resistance scanners, zooming between the stars. Her heart tells her Ben’s on it, running from the First Order, from the Resistance. From her, from his son. He’s on his own mission now.

“Marin. Your father has been misguided ever since he was a boy. I’m doing everything I can to get him back. We can’t do it without you.”

“He doesn’t care about coming back—about anything except for himself.” Hux, he’s unsure of. Hux wanted to be with him. Even if Hux doesn’t love him as much as he loves Kylo Ren, Marin doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to let go of Hux.

“He’s going to. He’s going to come back for you.”

“How do you _know?”_ Marin whimpers. _What if I don’t want him back? What if I’m content to never see him again?_

“Because he has to.”

Grandmother is just trying to make him feel better. He’s not so sure. He’s not sure of anything anymore. “What happens to me now?”

General Organa smiles comfortingly. “Now, that? That’s up to you.”

Hux said he’s going after Kylo Ren, and then he’ll come back for him once he’s got him. But he’s not even sure he wants that anymore. Hux is parsecs away. He made it clear he cares for Kylo Ren more than him.

“I want to train in the ways of the Force, and be a Jedi like Finn and Rey.” The words form on their own, confident and firm.

Sadness flashes over his grandmother’s features. “Are you sure that’s what you want?”

Marin nods, and then shifts his attention to the lonely stars. “I want to be a great warrior.” But not like Kylo Ren. He vows to be stronger than him.

One day, when he’s great and powerful, he won’t need anyone to comfort him. Sure, he’ll have family and friends. Rey and Finn, Grandmother and Luke Skywalker. But he won’t get upset when they inevitably leave him.

He won’t care one single bit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This installment marks the end of Firelight. Thanks to all those who left feedback, kudos, and even those who lost interest somewhere along the line and probably won't be reading this note HAHA. 
> 
> FEAR NOT, their story is far from over! there are several reasons why i ended this part where i did, most of which being the pivotal emotional developments for our 3 beloved main chars:  
> >hux having an 'i. did. that.' moment and returning to the first order not because he wants to, but because he sticks to what he knows because he's failed to hold onto his son when it truly counted  
> >marin having a kylo ren moment at the end *kylo ren theme playing*  
> >kylo of course, that ho, who we last saw in the previous chapter with his dad solo (because i wanted the final chapter to be reserved for hux and his bb (his bbs plural!!!!!!))
> 
> the first chapter of the final part of this series should be up next week! I'm happy to answer any questions in the meantime. Thank you all so so so much for reading!!!!!!!!!


End file.
